Release Date: 25 March, 1997
Audio CD
Tracks
- Sitting on Top of the World - Howlin' Wolf
- Fattening Frogs for Snakes - Sonny Boy Williamson [II]
- Key to the Highway - Little Walter
- Take the Bitter With the Sweet - Muddy Waters
- Spoonful - Howlin' Wolf
- So Many Roads, So Many Trains - Otis Rush
- Madison Blues - Elmore James
- Red Rooster - Howlin' Wolf
- You Shook Me - Muddy Waters
- Help Me - Sonny Boy Williamson [II]
- Baby, What You Want Me to Do [Live] - Etta James
- My Time After Awhile - Buddy Guy
- We're Gonna Make It - Little Milton
- I Got What It Takes - Koko Taylor
- One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer - John Lee Hooker
- I'd Rather Go Blind - Etta James
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Rating 4.5
Teasin' Pleaser....The Chess Blues Classics. Bellisimo, Baby. Great for an intro to the Chicago style post-Delta electric blues music--heck, this is great even if you're a longtime fan. This chronicles Chess Records move to their Michigan Ave. digs and the consolidating of some of their satellite small record companies into one big happy homestead. Bass man extraordinaire Willie Dixon becomes the Chess A & R man, and these Blues? They wail, Man, they wail! Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy, Howlin', Etta, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy!!!! When the Buddy Guy track comes on, you notice how much smoother the recording technology, hence, the Blues itself, becomes. A Little Milton cut has sessionmen Charles Stepney on piano and Maurice White on drums. Etta James house rocks a live audience in Nashville. Willie gives a tune to KoKo Taylor. And Hooker does the Last Call...will you love this? Do you have to ask?Great musicLike its companion volume, "Chess Blues Classics 1947-1956", this CD offers some of the best tracks by some of the best blues musicians of Chicago's famed Chess label.
One or two selections are debatable, and "Chess Blues Classics" is of no interest to the more experienced blues fan in that it doesn't include any rarities. But if you're a newcomer and would like to explore classic electric blues, this is a very fine place to start doing so.
"Chess Blues Classics 1957-1967" includes two excellent cuts by harp legend Aleck 'Rice' Miller (Sonny Boy Williamson II), namely "Help Me" and the magnificent "Fattening Frogs For Snakes", as well as fine selections by John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, and legendary bluesmen Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, and slide guitarist Elmore James. And Otis Rush's too rarely heard "So Many Roads, So Many Trains", with its smouldering slow guitar solo, is here as well.
Several of these tracks count among the greatest electric blues performances ever issued, including Howlin' Wolf's "Little Red Rooster" and John Lee Hooker's "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer".
4 1/2 stars. A great place to start.Excellent doorway into the bluesI bought this CD 4 years ago, not knowing a whole lot about the blues, and it is now one of my favorite albums. An excellent anthology of the classic blues. Anyone who considers themselves a music fan should listen to this CD. |
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