Super Session
Artist: Bloomfield-Kooper-Stills

As the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) had done a year earlier, Super Session (1968) initially ushered in several new phases in rock & roll's concurrent transformation. In the space of mere months, the soundscape of rock shifted radically from two- and three-minute danceable pop songs to comparatively longer works with more... Read More

Bloomfield: A Retrospective
Artist: Michael Bloomfield
Live at Bill Graham's Fillmore West
Artist: Michael Bloomfield

This session from early 1969 featured Nick Gravenites, Mark Naftalin, John Kahn, and Snooky Flowers (among others), with cameos from Taj Mahal and Jesse Ed Davis, but it's clear from the opening notes who the real star is. Over the years, Bloomfield's titanic solos on "Blues on a Westside" have dwarfed the rest of the album in my memory, but the... Read More

Hoodoo Man Blues
Artist: Junior Wells
Community Score: 10.00

One of the truly classic blues albums of the 1960s, and one of the first to fully document the smoky ambience of a night at a West side nightspot in the superior acoustics of a recording studio. Wells just set up with his usual cohorts -- guitarist Buddy Guy (billed as "Friendly Chap" on first vinyl pressings), bassist Jack Myers, and drummer... Read More

You're Tuff Enough
Artist: Junior Wells

Another period of the veteran Chicago harp man's career that awaits CD documentation -- and one of the most exciting. Wells's late-'60s output for Bright Star and Mercury's Blue Rock subsidiary frequently found him mining funky James Brown grooves (with a bluesy base, of course) to great effect -- "Up in Heah" and his national smash "You're Tuff... Read More

Memphis Charlie
Artist: Charlie Musselwhite

The 14 performances on Memphis Charlie include some loose live sides and even a taste of slide guitar from Musselwhite. They're the work of a more mature artist than the brash kid on Stand Back. ~ All Music Guide, All Music Guide Read More

Takin' My Time
Artist: Charlie Musselwhite

Another highly talented and original ensemble -- Rose still on piano, with the Ford brothers (Pat and Robben), on drums and guitar, respectively. Again, Rose contributes an original departure, the solo piano ballad "Two Little Girls" -- and, as usual, it is to Charlie's credit that he welcomed such far-from-blues mood swings. Otherwise, the... Read More

Hate to See You Go
Artist: Little Walter

Many blues fans identify this album by the scar on its front cover, and this doesn't mean that their copy got damaged lying around in the used-record pile. A larger than life black-and-white photograph of Little Walter fills the front cover with a visual impact that just cannot be matched in the petite world of compact discs. A jewel case would... Read More

Don't Say That I Ain't Your Man
Artist: Michael Bloomfield