Your favorite BLUES albums?

to name a few....

Robert Nighthawk - Live on Maxwell Street (frightening)
Mississippi John Hurt - Avalon Blues* (the best music ever made)
John Lee Hooker - The Legendary Modern Recordings 1948-1954
J.B. Lenoir - Vietnam Blues (beautiful, beautiful record - get the cd on Evidence which compiles the two lps released in the 60s on L&R)
Skip James - Complete Early Recordings
Otis Rush - 1956-1958 - Cobra Recordings
Magic Sam - 1957-1966: West Side Guitar - Cobra Recordings
Magic Sam - Live at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival and the Alex Club in Chicago
Magic Sam - Give Me Time (hear Sam play some insane shit sitting around his home while the phone rings and his kids run around the place in the background! Wonderful record!!)
Ishman Bracey - (1928-1930) Complete Recordings in Chronological Order
Junior Wells - Hoodoo Man Blues
Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers - Natural Boogie
B.B. King - Live at the Regal
Buddy Guy - Southern Blues 1957-63
Homesick James - Goin' Back Home
Muddy Waters - The Complete Plantation Recordings
Muddy Waters - Hard Again
Muddy Waters Chess box
Howlin' Wolf Chess box
The Best of Duke-Peacock Blues collection
Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell - Blues Before Sunrise
Elmore James / John Brim - Whose Muddy Shoes
David "Honeyboy" Edwards - Crawling Kingsnake
Earl Hooker - Two Bugs and a Roach
Freddie King - Let's Hide Away and Dance Away With Freddy King
get all the Little Walter you can get your hands on
get the Jimmy Reed Vee-Jay stuff any way you can. I can't remember what the comp I have is called.
10 million Yazoo label collections of all kinds mindblowing shit...

Every single one of those records is goddamn outstanding, and there are TONS more but I'm going to bed. Everyone ought to, geez, check out at least a couple of them before buying another cruddy indie rock record...

(*this is the 60s session he did for the Library of Congress. In some ways I like it better than his original sides - I love the interview bits between the songs for one. I think the material has been packaged and repackaged under a number of different names over the years .. but the cd I have is Avalon Blues on Flyright.)

Memphis Minnie: Hoodoo Lady
VA: Texas Blues: Bill Quinn's Gold Star Recordings
VA: When the Sun Goes Down (box set)
The Complete Bukka White
Before the Blues series (on Yazoo)
Robert Pete Williams: anything, but esp. s/t (Fat Possum), Free Again, When a Man Takes the Blues, I'm As Blue As a Man Can Be
VA: Angola Prisoners' Blues
The Complete Blind Willie Johnson
Fred McDowell: Levee Camp Blues, Amazing Grace
VA: The Voice of the Blues: Bottleneck Guitar Masterpieces
Skip James: Complete Early Recordings
Rev Gary Davis: Complete Recorded Works 1935-1949
The Definitive Blind Willie McTell
VA: American Primitive Vol. 1: Raw Pre-War Gospel
Charley Patton: Complete Recordings
Junior Kimbrough: All Night Long
Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Precious Memories
Gene Autry: Blues Singer 1929-1931
Josh White: Blues Singer 1932-1936
Mississippi Sheiks: Stop and Listen
Big Bill Broonzy: Good Time Tonight
J.B. Lenoir: Vietnam Blues
Emmett Miller: The Minstrel Man from Georgia
VA: White Country Blues 1926-1938

along with about twenty others of course

Albert King- Born Under a Bad Sign, Live Wire/Blues Power
John Mayall - Bluesbreakers with John Mayall, A Hard Road
Buddy Guy & Junior Wells - Play the Blues
Muddy Waters - Live at Newport 1960, Electric Mud
Junior Kimbrough - Most Things Have Not Worked Out
Freddy King - Hide Away: The Best of Freddy King
Magic Sam- West Side Soul, Black Magic
Little Walter - His Best (Chess Anniversary Collection)
Sonny Boy Williamson - His Best (Chess Anniversary Collection)
Johnny Guitar Watson - The Very Best of Johnny Guitar Watson (Blues Masters Collection)
Jimmy Reed - The Very Best of Jimmy Reed (Blues Masters Collection)
Slim Harpo- The Best of Slim Harpo (Excello Blues Collection/Hip-O Records)

my most fave blues album-as-album, I suppose, is Sonny Boy Williamson's "Bummer Road." Also, his "Real Folk Blues" with "Stop Right Now," the coon-hunting lynch-mob fable "Coon Hunt," "Decoration Day," "Nine Below Zero," and such.

one guy who gets passed over a lot owing to how his name is almost the same name as another guy's, plus he's from the same part of the country and about the same age, is Little Johnny Taylor, not the Johnnie Taylor of Stax fame. In fact, I would wager there's never been two performers of the almost same name as vital as David Jones (David Bowie, right?) and Davey Jones (Monkees). Taylor's Fantasy comp, "Greatest Hits," 17 trax, includes the essential "Part Time Love" that Howard Tate did note-for-note, also "Zig Zag Lightning," which isn't the Beefheart song; "First Class Love," of course; "Sometimey Woman"; "I Smell Trouble." classic, west-coast shit, which is why I like it; blues getting slightly sanitized like the way Little Johnny did it, that's always a fun process.

Buddy Guy I Was Walkin Through The Woods
Howlin Wolf Moanin in the Moonlight DUH

add:

Son Seals Midnight Son
Son Seals The Son Seals Blues Band

Junior Wells was truly a bad mf'er, such a great blues singer.

Add for me...

Junior Wells- Southside Blues Jam, Hoodoo Man Blues
Junior Wells- Chief Singles 1957-63
Jimmy Dawkins- Fast Fingers

Thing is with some of these guys like Albert King or Freddie King, I haven't really heard anything I didn't like. Even some of their albums that are not as heralded are still pretty nice.

Nice thread, guys. Good work

Which of these would stand out for their guitar playing?

Lots of them!

I need to decide which Otis Taylor cd to add to the list. He's a Singer/electric guitarist with a unique modal, droning style. He's also still at it, and is touring the US fairly often.

We need an Otis Taylor S&D thread.

idk blues that well but maybe:

jb hutto and the hawks - hawk squat

i got it from a friend it's really good

thanks, always meant to check out jb but never knew where to start - sunnyland slim plays on that one, doesn't he?

you know i'm not even sure, i got a bunch of records from an older dude i work with and it had lots of cool blues stuff that i don't know that much abt...it's super tuff chicago style electric blues, really hyper and rowdy

i also got "no way out" by sonny boy williamson in that batch which i like a lot too. but yeah i don't know many blues sidemen or anything

ha any yes it says sunnyland slim right on the cover duh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W8dDj0LkeE

awesome. will pick that one up.

been on a huge robert nighthawk kick. dude rules

I stopped by Jazz Record Mart on my run home and picked up Muddy Waters' 1969 supergroup album with Otis Spann, Michael Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, Donald Duck Dunn, Sam Lay, Buddy Miles etc., Fathers And Sons. Will be putting on the headphones in a few. Also got cheap used copy of Stevie Vaughan's Texas Flood, which I've heard but never owned. I saw there's also a 2011 remaster of Magic Sam's West Side Soul, but wanted to get something I didn't have.

Also listening to:

Junior Wells - Hoodoo Man Blues (1965)
Albert King - Born Under A Bad Sign (1967)

curmudgeon - which Otis CD do you recommend, the Pentatonic Wars one or the Clovis People one? Let me know in the next few hours if you can! My local shop has both...

ELECTRIC MUD

also this:
http://www.wirz.de/music/testamen/grafik/22191.jpg

oh man i am way too distracted right now to contribute to this thread but when i get back

that being said shakeys most recent suggestion is 1000% OTM. i have to dig a little to decide on albums, but bukka white, sonnie terry/brownie mcgee, and mance lipscomb would all be on the top of my list i think

keep your lamplights trimmed and boinin yo