Music » Blues Indie Music

Release Date: 1993-06-10, Audio CD, Delmark

The blues world lost a treasure when Luther Allison died in 1997, just as he was finally garnering the recognition he so richly deserved. If there's any question of that, this live album, recorded at the 1995 Chicago Blues Festival and at Buddy Guy's Legends, will dispel any such notion. A performer and songwriter of the first order, Allison had the sort of mastery of his instrument that comes from long experience; whether rolling off licks on the "Gambler's Blues/Sweet Little Angel" medley, or playing extended solos on "All the King's Horses," Allison's on the ball and in control at all times. This album contains mostly newer material previously recorded for Alligator Records, like "Soul Fixin' Man," "Bad Love," "All the King's Horses," and "What Have I Done Wrong?" Overall, this is an excellent memorial to a musician who should be remembered. --Genevieve Williams

Many believe this 1967 landmark, Sam Maghett's first full-length studio recording, is the greatest blues album ever made. While that assertion is awfully difficult to substantiate, these 11 gems (plus one alternate) certainly deserve hyperbolic praise. These cuts have a dramatically direct emotional appeal, a blunt, unfiltered artlessness that's rarely been achieved in an electric setting. Sam's spirited vocals come from his heart and his belly, not his brain. His guitar work is smoothly melodic, à la B. B. King with a bit more bite, frenetic and energetic like Buddy Guy, but with more taste. Since this Mississippi native died at age 32, this album sits in a mystical place in blues history: In many ways, it is to Chicago blues what Robert Johnson's meager output is to Delta blues. --Marc Greilsamer

Release Date: 2004-12-27, Audio CD, Ace Records UK

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: HILL,Z.Z.
Title: GREATEST HITS
Street Release Date: 06/07/1990
Domestic
Genre: BLUES

Talking Timbuktu is a groundbreaking record that vividly illustrates the Africa-Blues connection in real time. Ali Farka Toure, one of Mali's leading singer-guitarists, has a trance-like, bluesy style that, although deeply rooted in Malian tradition, bears astonishing similarity to that of John Lee Hooker or even Canned Heat. It's a mono-chordal vamp, with repetitive song lines cut with shards of blistering solo runs that shimmer like a desert mirage. Toure may be conversant with some blues artists, but it is unlikely that artists like Hooker or Robert Pete Williams ever heard these Malian roots, which makes the connection so uncanny. Ry Cooder, well versed in domestic and world guitar styles, is the perfect counterpoint in these extended songs/jams, his sinewy slide guitar intertwining with his partner's in a super world summit without barriers or borders. --Derek Rath

Limited Edition Japanese pressing of this album comes housed in miniature LP sleeve. 2007.

Who'd have thought a Swede raised on an island in the Baltic, not a single drop of African blood in his veins, would emerge as one of the leading exponents of R&B and blues in New Orleans? Unlike many musicians from elsewhere who've staked out turf there, Osborne stays true to his own musical conceits, rather than mimic the storied local tradition. On his sixth and probably best album, he wrestles sincere feeling from every note he sings and every blue note he plays on guitars, no matter if his technical skills aren't commanding. In his favor, too, the program is filled with sturdy, original slow blues and medium-tempo blues-rock songs. The one stinker is the trad-jazz-flavored "Life Is Strange." Guests: Jonny Lang and Keb' Mo'. Secret weapon: Kirk Joseph, playing bass lines on sousaphone. --Frank-John Hadley

Array

Sam Charters first recorded Bahamian guitarist Joseph Spence on Andros Island in July 1958. Spence, long out of work as a stonemason, had used his time to perfect a unique style of playing. Charters took Spence as a model for what he wanted to hear in other Bahamian guitarists.