Customer Reviews

Blues 1

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You can't argue with the choices here for excellent postwar Chicago blues. All classics. If it weren't for the longer and more varied "Blues Masters Volume 2: Postwar Chicago Blues", I would've voted this 5 stars. Rock and roll was birthed here, baby!

This is a straight reissue of the original US Chess vynil album, then issued in the UK on Pye in 1964, which also happens to be the very first Blues record I bought, at age 13. Therefore it's as much nostalgia as anything else to me, so I bought it on CD even though I already had everything elsewhere, but it's still a true clasic with not a dud on it. Let's hear it for Chess records. They changed my life.If I could have been anybody else in life, I'd like to have been Len Chess. Or maybe Sophia Loren........

The only thing wrong with this tremendous collection of 50s and early 60s blues singles is that it clocks it at just over 32 minutes, and that's just not enough, even considering that it was originally issued in the LP age (1963).

But there is no arguing with what is here. The first of six "The Blues" volumes from MCA/Chess is probably the best of the series, drawing from the vast Chess catalogues of men like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson (II), Buddy Guy, and John Lee Hooker. And these are not throwaways...Wolf is represented by "Spoonful" and the eerie and powerful "Smokestack Lightnin'", Sonny Boy Williamson by the superb "Don't Start Me To Talkin'", Muddy Waters by "Hoochie Coochie Man" and "I Just Want To Make Love To You" (which is called by its original title, "Just Make Love To Me", on the cover). Harmonica ace Little Walter Jacobs' first hit, the instrumental "Juke" is here as well, as is his excellent recording of Willie Dixon's "My Babe", and soulful bluesman Jimmy Witherspoon's best song, "When The Lights Go Out", is another of the highlights.

The annotation is mediocre, and this album has long since been supplanted by other (longer) compilations, but it remains a great introduction to classic Chicago blues. If you're new to the blues, this will convince you of its merit. And if it doesn't, well then nothing will.

I am replacing the worn out vynil copy ive had since my musical taste began -- so glad to find this album still exists it the real thing

I more or less agree with some of the other reviewers who bemoan the fact that this only contains 12 tracks and that, even if it is an AAD CD release of an earlier vinyl LP, there have been so many such re-releases issued with "bonus" tracks in order to compete with today's standard of oldies compilations (20 to 30 tracks). But that's MCA for you.

The insert contains recording dates for each track as well as sessionographies, which makes it nice, although they don't provide chart details or label information. However, they do give you the original album sleeve notes by noted record producer and recording engineer Esmond Edwards, who also did a lot of work for Prestige Records from the mid-1950s to early 1960s.

Here's the missing details on the tracks:
1. Don't Start Me To Talkin - Checker 824 - # 3 R&B November 1955
2. First Time I Met The Blues - Chess 1753 - did not chart in 1960
3. Worried Life Blues - Chess 1754 - did not chart in 1960
4. My Babe - Checker 911 - # 1 R&B April/May 1955
5. Walkin'; The Boogie - Chess 1513 - did not chart in 1952
6. I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man - Chess 1560 - did not chart in 1954
7. Reconsider Baby - Checker 804 - # 3 R&B in late 1954/early 1955
8. Smoke Stack Lightning - Chess 1618 - # 8 R&B in March 1956
9. Juke - Little Walter - Checker 758 - # 1 R&B for 8 weeks in fall 1952
10. When The Lights Go Out - Checker 798 - did not chart in 1954
11. Just Make Love To Me - Chess 1571 - # 4 R&B in July 1954
12. Spoonful - Chess 1762 - did not chart in 1960

As others have pointed out, none of them particularly rare or hard to find, but still a nice compact little collection of some of the best to come out of Chess/Checker from 1952 to 1960.

I bought this on cassette tape AGES ago. I was still in high school and I wanted to sample some blues music to enhance my guitar playing. After one listen, I was transformed and I've NEVER looked back! Its true there are other compilations that have more to offer than this short collection, but this is the album that introduced me to HOWLIN' WOLF, LITTLE WALTER, and SONNY BOY WILLIAMSON! For that, alone, I must hold it in the highest regard. There are absolutely no filler tracks here. Its ALL great and I feel so fortunate that I bought it on a whim. Oh, what a whim can do. Heck, I'm gonna go listen to it right now...

Thanks to my father's generosity (he was shopping for Django Reinhardt records and I, already familiar with that music and the Beatles, Stones, Buddy Holly, Elvis, Eddie Cochran and so forth was curious as to what else was out there) this was the first blues album I acquired, on the Pye International label, back in late 1964. Life was never the same again!

This music sounds like it was recorded yesterday - it will never grow old. Yes, this particular compilation, a straight reissue of the original album with no bonus tracks has only 30 minutes playing time. But it's perfect. And so, all you need to do when the disc finishes playing is to do what I and legions of others (including the fledgling Rolling Stones) did is to play it again. And again...