CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Raising Sand

CD-Charts > Music > Traditional Blues
from: Rounder

Release Date October 23, 2007
"Raising Sand" is the haunting and brilliant collaboration between Robert Plant and Allison Krauss; it opens with my favorite track - the Sam Phillips song "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us", which quickly demonstrates that there's a lot more going on here than the "Led Zeppelin goes Country" preconception that the notion of these two artists working together conjures up. The album continues with track after track enjoyment and surprise. This is yet another triumph for producer T Bone Burnett, who has incisively crafted a breath-taking soundscape, supported by some of the finest musicians working today, where the whole is deliriously more than the sum of the parts. It all sounds so effortless that you know it must have been quite the opposite ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

We'll Never Turn Back

CD-Charts > Music > Traditional Blues
by: Mavis Staples

Release Date April 24, 2007
Mavis Staples has a voice unlike any other -- one that will give you chills, bring tears to your eyes, and inspire you. This is one of the best albums ever: powerful songs of the struggle for freedom and dignity sung with profound soul and brought up to date with a great backing band. Mavis is at the top of her form, and music doesn't come any better than that.

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

Hoodoo Man Blues

CD-Charts > Music > Traditional Blues
by: Junior Wells

Release Date June 10, 1993
HOODOO MAN BLUES by Junior Wells is a GREAT blues album. If you like Chicago electric blues, you've GOT to have this CD! The CD also has some out-takes that were never on the original album. These are great too. Junior Wells is my favorite bluesman of all time. His harp playing is fantastic as are his vocals. I almost forgot to mention that Buddy Guy plays absolutely fantastic guitar on this album!

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

The Definitive Collection

CD-Charts > Music > Traditional Blues
by: Muddy Waters

Release Date May 23, 2006
There is a huge amount of Muddy Waters-compilations out there, and while MCA/Chess's two-disc, 50-track "Anthology 1947-1972" is certainly more definitive than this Geffen compilation, it does offer a very good overview of Muddy Waters' career.

Opening with the classic 1948 single "I Can't Be Satisfied", this CD takes you through (most of) the highlights from the 1950s and 60s. "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I'm Ready", "I Just Wanna Make Love To You", "Mannish Boy", and "Got My Mojo Working" are here, of course, and in the original versions, too, but it's a shame that some slightly lesser known (but equally fine) singles like "I Love The Life I Live, I Live The Life I Love", "She's Nineteen Years Old" and "I Want To Be Loved" are missing.

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CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

Dona Got a Ramblin Mind

CD-Charts > Music > Traditional Blues
by: Carolina Chocolate Drops

Release Date June 26, 2007
The Chocolate Drops are good for their age and will improve as they grow older and have more instructions and practice. I have heard better young people as well as many who were not as good. Again I say that with more practice and exposure they will be one of the better groups in the near future.

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

Theme Time Radio Hour: With Your Host Bob Dylan

CD-Charts > Music > Traditional Blues
from: Ace Records UK

Release Date February 26, 2008
So much about what I have come to love about music is falling away - "albums" are being replaced by singles downloaded from cyberspace, music magazines (so long No Depression) are shuttering their doors due to lack of ad revenue, and great record stores are closing by the dozen. Into these dangerous straits waded XM Radio and Bob Dylan with the Theme Time Radio Hour - a throwback to simpler times wherein Bob Dylan selects an hour's worth of choice cuts loosely centered around a "theme" like flowers, or marriage or coffee. The show has been a breath of fresh air - it's success due in equal measure to Dylan's pithy narrative style and his impeccable taste in popular music.

What we have here is Ace Records' attempt to anthologize the radio show by choosing 50 cuts ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday

CD-Charts > Music > Traditional Blues
by: Billie Holiday

Release Date October 02, 2001
This is not a good demonstration of Billie Holliday. First, too many songs squeezed into each side. Sound not good. For me, it was a waste of money. One of her best is the Billie Holiday-Lester Young CD " a musical romance"

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

American Folk-Blues Festival: The British Tours 1963-1966 [DVD]

CD-Charts > Music > Traditional Blues
starring: Various Artists

Release Date May 08, 2007
Having a live recording is owning a piece of history,I wish that I could name the concerts that I attended way back when and bam heres a live recording of a piece of your life frozen in time.Very well done.Can you come up with a live performance of Paul Butterfield in 1968....??...

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

The Sky Is Crying: The History of Elmore James

CD-Charts > Music > Traditional Blues
by: Elmore James

Release Date April 06, 1993
Love the blues? This is for you. One of the early up from Mississippi to Chicago bluesmen (I think he died in '43). "Madison Blues" and "The Sky is Crying" the way 'lonesome George' heard them first.

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

His Best

CD-Charts > Music > Traditional Blues
by: Sonny Boy Williamson

Release Date May 20, 1997
Sonny Boy II is not my favorite. I like more honk from the harp and less undercurrent of menace from the vocals, and I like Little Walter's and Paul Butterfield's ways of extending the blues melodically without losing the Chicago of it. But Sonny Boy grows on me, and this album has a lot of great stuff for a guy like me to hear who's trying to pick up journeyman skills on the harp.