4 comments about Free Beer and Chicken.

1. So this may be the greatest album I've ever listened to. I drink a great amount of beer. I'm usually 5 sheets to the hurricane by the time I walk in the office. Nothing beats being plastered on miller lite at your office job. I'm usually slurring my speech in an important meetings and have installed bumpers along the walls so I don't hurt myself walking down the hall. Some of my decision making isn't really great when I'm hammered, according to my boss. I gave this hot chick a $32 an hour raise one day because she looked totally hot. I found out the next day, she was kind of bigger than I thought. I had to tell her I couldn't give her the raise, but if I'm drunk I might sleep with her. I guess that is called sexual harrassment. My excuse was that I was drunk and didn't know what I was saying. So we've established that I love beer, now on to chicken. I could eat Popeyes spicy chicken for every meal, it's that freakin good. I'll bring a 13 piece bucket into work with me in the morning with a sixer and I'll spend the whole day scarfing down chicken and drinking cold ale. I never wash my hands so it looks like I rubbed crisco on my keyboard because it's so greasy. All my work computer is really fo is surfing porn. I'll cruise porn, hammered off my butt with greasy chicken fingers from 9(I come in late) to 4(I leave early). My coworkers love me because I help the bottom line. Free Chicken? MMMMMM Free Beer? MMMMMM. Folks, we've got a winner.



2. Not for the blues purest. Strickly for the fans of Mr. Hooker. Not my fav CD but still captures his musical stylings.



3. This album is one of the most excellent oddities in the Boogie King's catalogue. This is best described as John Lee Hooker does a funk album. Definitely not for blues purists. There are a few straight up and down blues numbers like 'Settin' on top of the world', and 'Five Long Years', but other numbers find John dropped straight into a well-oiled, psychedlic funk machine (replete with violin solos!). I'd recommend this album to open minded John Lee Hooker fans, and also those who are into Funkadelic. 5 star weirdness.



4. Hello there... This is an excellent heavy party album - sit around by the camp fire, drink beer and don't bother talking cause the music will drown you out. John Lee Hooker at his best. I'm only a 20 something - but I love it - so does my Dad - bridge that hippy generation gap with this one...

1 comments about Songs from the Southland.

1. I never meant to be a chauvinist, but I thought you had to be American to play great blues. Boy was I ever wrong. Hans Theessink is the real deal, despite being Dutch. His blues is exactly what the blues is supposed to sound like: full of heart and sadness. On this album (his best by far IMHO), he does a number of traditional blues songs including a tremendous St. James Infirmary, a melancholic song which has never been done better, despite being covered by Louis Armstrong, Dr. John, Doc Watson, Lou Rawls, and Dave Van Ronk (if you wanna know a few more versions check out my list of great versions of St. James Infirmary on Amazon).
   
   Theessink, whose Dutch accent is almost undetectable, does versions of "My Girl" (Leadbelly), John Fogerty's "One Hundred and Ten in the Shade", some Robert Johnson, Skip James, and etc. Real blues, often done with solo acoustic guitar accompaniment, and nothing but his deep, DEEP baritone. Beautiful album.

3 comments about Crucial Live Blues.

1. GOD, I LOVE THIS CD!! It is truly alive, in a way most other live or studio recordings cannot even come close to. It showcases extremely high-energy live performances from almost twenty different Chicago-based or Chicago-visiting blues acts between about 1980 and 2000. These are great songs performed by great blues artists, some of them funny and high-spirited, all of them raw and electrifying. This is one of those rare CDs that is unrelentingly excellent and sparkles and crackles with energy all the way through. Alligator Records offers a number of really good blues collections of acts that have come through Chicago, but I'd say this one is the best of all. [That claim is based on a familiarity with both Alligator's other compilation CDs and several dozen (or maybe a few hundred) other blues recordings--this one is one of my all-time favorites!.] If you enjoy the blues, or if you aren't sure but are curious to try it out, this is a GREAT (and inexpensive) place to start!



2. VARIOUS
   Crucial Live! Blues
   Alligator ALCD 119
   
   Alligator has converted more fans to the blues than they will ever know. Now another generation's ears will be called to the blues due to the Crucial Blues series. In addition to the authoritative music, Crucial Live! Blues comes with an attractive and tempting low-cost price tag, 60 minutes of music, 13 cuts (mostly covers), tracks recorded in the U.S., Australia, and Japan and originally released between 1974 and 2002, simple yet expressive cover art, and liner info extracted from Alligator's mail order catalog. The greatest differences between this sampler and other Alligator compilations include not being as long in duration and un-detailed credits.
   
   The vital CD features the label's finest musicians. Most of them are guitar slingers. You will encounter nine of them at this concert while the rest of the gig consists of two prized vocalists, one harp phenomenon, and one acoustic act. Lonnie Mack performs alive and kicking blues-rock with a rolling rhythm on "Riding The Blinds". The track will have you wondering why he didn't become as big a star as Stevie Ray Vaughan given the fact that Vaughan was his most devoted disciple. "Tired Man" features the unmistakable piercing guitar of Albert Collins along with impressive sax and bass that drives the definitive rhythm. More than one song will have you longing to be relaxing in a smoky Chicago blues bar. One example is "Going Back To Iuka", which showcases two hot guitarists on a rolling shuffle led by Koko Taylor's roaring throat. With classy guitar, Little Charlie & The Nightcats have the innate ability to make the blues fun. As do the acoustic and folky Saffire - The Uppity Blues Women. Ironically, their hilarious song contains lyrics written by Charlie's Rick Estrin. Lonnie Brooks' booming voice, sassy guitar, and enthusiastic rhythms are as fulfilling as a bowl of gumbo. His masterful band supports Elvin Bishop during "My Dog" and makes him vibrant. Sporting an ultra, funky, big, eight-member band, James Cotton slightly personalizes the lyrics of "Born In Chicago". Like a spontaneous, wild party thrown by your roommate, Hound Dog Taylor creates a welcome racket that you can't resist joining. Son Seals' music is raw, tough, and unpolished - just like the side of town you were told to avoid. "Cherry Red Wine" is taken from Live In Chicago, which is quite possibly, the finest live, electric, Chicago blues recording ever made. Here, Luther Allison's tantalizing live guitar work is a testimony to his brilliance.
   
   In having to bypass other great live Alligator recordings by Elvin Bishop and Little Smokey Smothers, Big Twist, and Siegel-Schwall, it must have been a struggle for the producers to narrow their selections. Since blues is such an in-the-moment music, which is best experienced live, Crucial Live! Blues is not to be missed. The only thing that could have made this a better compilation was a previously unreleased track or two thrown in for good measure. Let's hope the crucial keyboard, vocalist and horn collections aren't far behind.
   
   -- Tim Holek



3. I have probably 50 or more blues CD's. I got this one maybe a month ago, and it immediately became one of my favorites. The only dud is "Dump That Chump." Whatever your thoughts on Saffire, this particular song is a clunking boogie that just doesn't fit with the other songs. Otherwise, every song on the album is a ton of fun to listen to. I play guitar myself, and it's also a great album to jam along with. This CD would be worth a lot more than they're charging for it! And that comes from a person who thinks that most CD's are worth maybe $4.

1 comments about Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order, 1928-1929.

1. Ishman Bracey was an original amongst originals, as all bluesmen were in a way Outlaws among Outlaws, as no two played the same song the same way twice. But Ishman was lucky to have had such a rare kindred spirit in bluesdom in his bestest friend and lifelong inspirational partner Tommy Johnson. Two Old Crow's if ever there were two regulars hanging for life in the same ancient tree or seated at the same bar stools reserved exclusively for each. Telling that these two local cronies spent near everyday of their lives at each other's side yet their music is wholly singularly each's own and expressive of each's spirit. Those were days when if one played a traditional song note for note of someone else's accomplishment it only showed you were not a real musician and had no right to steal, or worse, forge a fakery and mock another...thus no song was played the same way twice in a music who has no equivalent in America today as far as spontaneous purity goes. There is no place on the planet where a music as versatile and divers as that of the entire state of Mississippi is where some unknown night only the dog star shone there rose out of a soil as dark as coffeegrounds a 100 bogey's hollerin’ the blues everywhere two roads crossed one another. A state that boasts a delta valley that only the Nile in Egypt can compare to for sheer size and grandiose beauty, as well as the richest soil in the world! The Jester Ruthless purports with abundant evidence a meteor landed in the vicinity of Clarksdale, in the very heart of the delta around 1926, and that explains why the Devil's got no dice on Mississippi Bluesmen, and could relax whenever he made his way down from Memphis all the way to Jackson, the unholy capitol of rough and lowdown juke joints where Tommy and "IshY" hung out before and after their glorified return from up north in the deltalands where Tommy's Brother tells he use to boast the devil hisself sat down and learned him how to play the git-fiddle a year ago he could barely keep tuned rightly!
   But Ishman! Along with Tommy among the first musicians that converted a man who at long last, on the verge of musical impotence and lost of all hopes had found his music, as Brion Gysin and William S. Burrroughs promised that: "When you hear the music that is YOURS you KNOW the first time your hear it you will never need any other..." Ishman's "Saturday Blues" is as much a classic to me as is Tommy's "cool drink of water", the first track either of them laid down, which always tells a song's significance in any session a bluesmen recorded way back then. They take the same sing and make it their own and noone else to repeat! The last two tracks with Charlie McCoy from Late Summer 1928(no need to reveal his other more infamous persona, you'll figure it out, only bluesmen have as many names as some writers expand their own as they reach a new season in a new age calling them a different name from now on)"Trouble-Hearted Blues" and "The Four Day Blues" are standouts as there is NOTHING like them among any Blue Musician, played slow in Spanish tuning, with a solemnity only Sam Collins or Skip James equals such falsetto tremellowed lamentations. The Surreality of the lyrics makes those two songs even more poignant.
   There's a great photo of Ishman on the green cover of Yazoo's "friends of Charlie Patton",both back and front, that provides a face and a man to associate when these men jump out through your speakers and scream in your face or tap you on the with a ghostly composure on the shoulder so unexpectedly you jump right out of your skin to realize the immediacy and immortality of a Blues as solemn and real as Ishamn's Blues is, as valid as the day they were set down, as the blues is a human constant that does not fade...but the music can be forgotten how to be played, ( a travesty, an excruciating, calamitous loss, a sadness like the loss of the Buffalo) ...the music isn't played like a classical piece that takes concentrated composure and conscience care; the blues is more like a man set free, it makes meatballs of mathematical of equations fit on a fret board big as a two-by-four. it's what's done inside the man (or woman) that makes a music that wholly takes possession of you and lets you spend some time free of the sufferings finally made into a beautiful thing, like a sore battle won by both sides surrendering...it's a healing procedure that is evident in Ishman's first two sessions.
   Also of prime importance: one cannot own just Ishman or just Tommy, they are a pair today as much as in the 1920's, who lived a long time influencing entire generations in person, not from off a record. Together they defined a style not strictly adhered too as dogma, but followed like ritual that's recognizable whence your ear's tuned right to be able to fathom the Country Blues of Southern Mississippi. (JACKSON BLUES 1928-1938 is one of Yazoo's Greatest Gifts) Both kept on living hard, doing drugs and booze and playing/partying all-night gigs and getting in trouble everywhere like two men who together never let youth's spontaneous good time slip away like the days did. Their lives are as dramatic as their music, one can be assured of that!
   But a touching tale is that when Tommy died, Ishman set down the devil's music and his ways and never played the blues again but became a preacher of God; so much did the death of his friend affect him. It's a tragedy as touching as Vincent and Theo, or Barbecue Bob and his Bros. Or Robert crumb's own brotherly intimacy he grew up in the confidence of. Like Ishman and Tommy did everything together, without one both suffer to an overwhelming degree, So buy the both of them together and keep them side by side if you get the original recordings with minimal remastering from DOCUMENT or WOLF
   (Those Hardcore Blues purists and traditional Fanatics that the Austrian's are, they issue everything in complete editions no matter how many cd's it takes to fill and all's in chronological order! A true labour of Love as sincere as the cronies at Yazoo is!)
   or sample them together on "Master of the Delta Blues: :the Friends of Charlie Patton" from Yazoo first. [...]

5 comments about The Country Blues of John Lee Hooker.

1. This is a great blues album from John Lee Hooker. A great example of one chord blues structure intermixed with Hookers unique vocal style. Leading off with Black Snake, one of Hookers best, the sound quality of the recording makes this album a gem. It was recorded in 1959 and on good stereo it will put JLH right in the room in front of you! If you like Blues done acoustic then this is a must have album.



2. This is a great CD, you get to hear John Lee play acoustic versions of some songs, which I love. It's a great addition to your collection!



3. In 1959, John Lee Hooker signed a one-off deal with the Riverside label to record an acoustic session of the country blues. It was a key change from his earlier recordings, most of which had featured Hooker on an electric guitar with his trademark reverb and stomping foot. Folk purists of the day were delighted with COUNTRY BLUES, believing Hooker had returned to his roots, leaving the "glitzy commercialism" of R&B behind. But some Hooker fans considered COUNTRY BLUES a "betrayal" of his true sound.
   
   The truth is probably somewhere in-between. Remember, John Lee Hooker is always John Lee Hooker, regardless of the format. If you like Hooker, or acoustic blues, buy this album. It is an intimate session featuring standards like "How Long", "Bottle Up and Go", as well as Hooker's first recorded take on "Tupelo", one of his all-time classics.
   
   BTW- The companion album for this would be BURNING HELL; its selections are from the same session. Think of it as THE COUNTRY BLUES OF JOHN LEE HOOKER Vol 2.



4. John Lee Hooker's solo. This is a classics. John Lee Hooker's vocal is so deep. His guitar wheeps. This is as moving as Lightnin' Hooker's "Autobiography in Blues" and Lonnie Johnson's "Another Night to Cry". Those are all recommended.



5. Hooker's guitar play in this album seems very simple at a glance. And it actually is. But the sound is so deep. This album reminds guitarists that the great sound is created by a refined sense rather than by techniques or skills. 'click'

2 comments about Sound Machine Groove.

1. A simply amazing album recorded by blues scholar and ethnomusicologist David Evan. This is R.L Burnside is with his family band -- not his punk worshipers, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Burnside plays in a style that is distinct from "Delta Blues" - it derives from the fife and drum traditions in the Mississippi Hill Country (see Othar Turner). This music the electric version of the hynotic, droning fife and drum + guitar. Don't let others fool you into thinking this is a less than stellar recording....



2. Relatively superficial (and slightly out of tune) effort by an artist who specializes in raw Delta blues. Lacks the intensity and originality of many of of his other CDs. It has a pleasant 'jamming in the living room' atmosphere, but fails to provide the intensity that Burnside supplie on nearly every other one of his albums.

5 comments about American Roots Music.

1. My wife and I had been eyeing this boxset for a few years now and she finally broke down and got it for me this past holiday season. It's a nice mix of country, blues, gospel, cajun/zydeco, tejano and native American. Overall, the box set is excellent. I don't think there is a bad tune on there, but I do feel it felt short on gospel, folk, cajun, zydeco, tejano and native American styles. There's only about 6 or 7 tracks for each of those styles where an entire 16-19 track disc is dedicated to both country and blues. The set should have been 6 discs instead or it should have been limited to just country and blues. Likewise, I felt it strange that an American Roots boxset included no jazz, for jazz is the only true first American born music, which is based on the blues of course. It's a great collection though and I enjoy listening to it every time. The long wait was worth it. I highly recommend it.



2. The PBS American Roots Music series - both the 4 part documentary on DVD and 4 CD boxed set - is a commendable work. It is an incredible education in not only popular American music and culture, but history, and should be required viewing and listening in high schools.

   Many of the problems in American Society and its youth today stem from a complete lack of pride and self-awareness. A quick survey of popular music and culture reveal a frightening level of ignorance of America's history, values, and ideals. In short, while the series focusses on America's musical traditions, it does a fantastic job of conveying a sense of America's "roots" in a positive, enriching manner.

   The DVD documentary strikes a perfect balance between glossing over, and becoming bogged down in, the material. Unlike the Ken Burns' projects that exhaust the viewer's interest and collapse under their own weight, the series is informative and educational, yet entertaining. It is not MEANT to be an exhaustive treatise on the subject - and so some reviewers here are missing the point - that would take 40, not 4, episodes. Rather, it is an introduction and a sampler; peaking our curiosity and prompting us to investigate and research further the wonderful heritage of music out there. And in that, it succeeds marvelously.

   What also impressed me was the documentary's remarkable objectivity. While it eschews political correctness, it doesn't necessarily candy coat anything either. What it does do is present the material in a respectful, thoughtful, intelligent, and unbiased manner - something so lacking in today's political and social discourse. So in this sense, folks looking for something with an "agenda" - conspiracies, skeletons in the closet, and historical revisionism - may be disappointed by the documentary.

   The CD boxed set is equally well-done: a fantastic booklet, thorough liner notes, and collection of songs that is a music lover's dream. Again, it is intended to be a sampler - great songs by landmark artists - not an exhaustive account of American Roots music. And also like the documentary, its meant to be a enriching, uplifting - not deconstructing - experience.

   If the series has a shortcoming, it is the absence of one of the major "roots" - Jazz - which was no doubt and most unfortunately excluded, because of the recent Ken Burns' PBS documentary. But to exclude Jazz from the discussion of American Roots music, means we do not have the entire picture. And so in that sense, the series is somewhat flawed.

   Still, its hard to find any other fault with the series. This is a work that TRULY embraces and celebrates America's cultural diversity. Entertaining and enlightening, I would heartily recommend owning the box set and DVD for one's own edification as well as a way to help introduce friends and family to REAL American music - in all its forms.




3. An Awsome Collection Of Hard To Find Roots Music In A Box
   Set Thats Worth The Money



4. Excellent collection, except I wish they could have picked another B.B. King tune than the overrated "The Thrill Is Gone."



5. One doesn't envy anyone charged with the task of assembling a collection of essential recordings in America's many folk and vernacular genres. As such things go, American Roots Music is decent enough, though inevitably anyone who knows the music will wonder at the omissions (for example, of Dock Boggs or any of the classic old-time string bands). Perhaps the major problem here is that the four discs encompass such a range of styles that they can hardly begin to do justice to any one of them. The serious listener will already have much of this in his or her collection. Of course it's not exactly a painful sacrifice to hear "Waiting for a Train," "Uncle Pen," "Black Snake Moan," "Cross Road Blues," or any of a number of other warhorses, yet again. I was least familiar with the music on Disc #4 (Cajun/Zydeco/Tejano/Native American) and so enjoyed it the most. A particular treat is Mingo Saldivar's lively version of the old Johnny Cash hit "Ring of Fire." Saldivar doesn't just sing the lyrics in Spanish; he reinvents the melody, making it sound as if "Ring" were always supposed to be a conjunto tune. The disc ends anticlimactically, however, with the inexplicable inclusion of a New-Ageish composition, when a reprise of the wonderful series theme song (a movingly organic rendition of "Worried Man Blues" by performers representing a variety of traditions) would have been a more proper send-off. As a primer set in an unusually attractive package, American Roots Music will do, more or less, but seasoned followers of our homegrown sounds will seek their pleasures elsewhere.

1 comments about Josh White Sings The Blues & Sings Volumes 1 & 2.

1. Josh White can rip your heart out with his blues, especially on songs like "One Meat Ball" (my personal favorite) and "Strange Fruit" (an even stronger version than Billie Holliday's). He has an intensity and style all his own, and I found this album to be a good cross-section of his work. His clear, pure voice adds to the pathos in an ironic way, and the accompanying guitar work is excellent. When you listen to his music, you get a real feel for what it's like to be down with no hope of ever getting up. His artistic mastery is unsurpassed.

No comments about Too Late, Too Late Blues, Vol. 8.

3 comments about King Bee.

1. The last of Muddy Waters' four Blue Sky albums is often considered the least as well, but you wouldn't know it listening to this superbly remastered and expanded reissue.
   
   Originally issued in 1981, "King Bee" was recorded at a time when Muddy Waters, then 65, was slowing down because of health problems, and his band was losing money because they were gigging less, finally causing them to quit en masse.
   Guitarist Bob Margolin's candid liner notes are much more brief and a lot less jolly than the warm and often humorous mini-essays he wrote for the reissues of "Hard Again" and "I'm Ready", and while his fondness for Muddy Waters is very obvious, it is equally obvious that he did not have a good time recording this album, Muddy Waters' last.
   
   Because of the tensions in the studio preceding the breakup of the Muddy Waters Band, producer and occational guitarist Johnny Winter felt the sessions had not produced enough solid material to yield an entire album, so he padded "King Bee" with outtakes from the 1977 "Hard Again" sessions (and this 2004 edition adds two more previously unreleased numbers).
   But there is certainly nothing wrong with the songs that did make the cut. "King Bee" is as lean and mean an album as Muddy ever made, and though the guest stars from the first two Blue Sky albums are missing, the "regular" Muddy Waters Band is every bit as competent as any all star combo. Muddy may have been ailing, but his voice is still strong and confident, and the rhythm section of Calvin "Fuzz" Jones (bass) and drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith is rock-solid, digging a train track groove on each and every song. Well, except the drum-less acoustic workout "I Feel Like Going Home", a wonderful re-recording of one of Muddy's earliest waxings.
   
   Muddy Waters and his killer ensemble lifts relatively lightweight numbers like "Deep Down In Florida", "My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble" and "Champagne And Reefer" high above mediocrity, and songs like "No Escape From The Blues", the swaggering "Too Young To Know" and the gritty title track pack an immense wallop.
   There are no weak songs here, actually. The re-recording of "Sad Sad Day" should be a blueprint for all slow blues numbers, and the two bonus tracks are by no means throwaways.
   Muddy recorded James Oden's "I Won't Go On" (which is suspiciously reminicent of "I Feel So Good") way back in the 50s, and here it is again, rough and tough and sung in a deep, manly baritone by Waters. And the slow grind of "Clouds In My Heart" is one of the finest songs on the album, featuring a sublime soulful lead vocal, masterful drumming, and some tremendous lead guitar playing courtesy of "Steady Rollin'" Bob Margolin.
   
   Johnny Winter plays excellent slide guitar on several songs (although that is Muddy himself wielding the bottleneck on "Sad Sad Day"), and there is not a glimmer of rock commercialism in his playing, it is pure blues. His abilities as a producer are equally fine, and while "King Bee" doesn't usually get the attention of "Hard Again" or Muddy's classic Chess sides, it should be considered a must-own for any semi-serious Muddy Waters-fan, especially in this expanded edition.
   4 1/2 stars. Highly recommended.



2. This CD lacks the feel-good, party-time atmosphere of the rest of Muddy's Blue Sky period. According to Bob Margolin's liner notes, the somber atmosphere of these recordings were due to a discontent between Muddy and the band over money. Some of the tracks are actually outtakes from 1977 sessions to complete the album. The band quit, and Muddy carried on performing live until his death in 1983.

   The two outtakes are excellent additions and worth upgrading this CD in your collection. But if you'd rather listen to a blues band having a great time in the studio, buy Hard Again or I'm Ready instead. They are both a better listen than King Bee.




3. This final document from the end of his storied career is a blend of studio tracks that were not quite finished for what would have been his third CD with Johnny Winter at the helm, plus a few additional tracks from the previous two years' sessions. While this did not garner the acclaim on its initial release that the other 2 CDs did, it may actually, in its remastered form, be the best of the bunch. Haunting in a way that Johnny Cash's last CD is, this is the sound of a man who knows he has come to the end of the crossroads, as it were.
   From the previous sessions you have the full band at full throttle and the intensity is devastating. From the uncompleted sessions, the songs are more introspective, more intimate, perhaps truer to his cotton field roots than he had been in a very long time, and they are positively spiritual. But what trily sets this apart are the final two bonus cuts that somehow wrap and sum up the legacy of Muddy Waters: "I Can't Go On" amd "Clouds in My Eyes" are so upsetting because these are in fact his very last songs recorded. They are his best as well. Odd that inadvertenetly he would save the very best for last, but these two songs will haunt your soul much as Cash's rendition of "Hurt" does. Columbia and Johnny Winter and the remastering team have done the world of music a very great service in preserving and restoring these tracks.
   Bob Margolin penned intimate and heartfelt liner notes for each of these reissues that are so to the point that they bring you inside the world that Muddy lived. For this last session, they all knew the end was near and somehow drew strength inspite of the oncoming sorrow from their leader's bravery and integrity and deep down grit. Muddy Waters was an ontological and existential hero of the first order, and his coda is as powerful a departing testament as Beethoven's last string quartet, as Tchicovsky's No 6, as Mahler's 9th. This is African American Blues-Gospel-Spiritual requiem in all its soulful acquiessence to a more pwerful Creator. Positively, this was both his most intimate and his most powerful collection of music and it will haunt you the rest of your life.