Chess Blues

Sound quality is not digital, with the scratchy background of recordings from mediums of the time.

How should I put this...?

subtle? historic? passionate? Let's just leave it at this.

IT'S A 4 CD BOX WITH BLUES FROM CHESS!! THAT'S MUDDY WATERS AND HOWLING WOLF!! DUH!!! OF COURSE 5 STARS!!

This is a collection of 101 blues recordings from the Chess Records vault. It features many of the best known blues singers, as well as some performers that history has forgotten. Most of Chess Records' biggest hit blues records are included, but there are also many obscurities here. In fact, almost half the tracks are rarities. But the obscurities are almost as good as the well known recordings. Everything here is good, with most of the tracks being better than good. If you want to learn about the blues, this is the perfect place to start.

All right, students, now pay attention! Put down that racing form and pay attention right now! This here Chess Blues box set contains exactly 101 tracks. How appropriate! That makes this collection a sort of unofficial college course entitled Blues 101, and Professors Wolf, Waters, James, and Jacobs (Little Walter), etc., etc., will be your blues instructors. You will learn the Fundamentals of Blues Harp, with Little Walter ("Juke") and Sonny Boy Williamson II ("Don't Start Me to Talkin'") as your master teachers. Over here, we have a course entitled Mellow Blues, with Willie Dixon ("Walkin' the Blues") and Jimmy Witherspoon ("Ain't Nobody's Business") showing you how it's done. Then, we have instruction in Blues and the Female Voice, with Koko Taylor ("What Kind of Man Is That," "Wang Dang Doodle") and Etta James ("Somethings Got A Hold Of Me," "I'd Rather Go Blind") as your teachers. Finally, what great university would be complete without Master Classes and the best professors in the business Muddy Waters ("Got My Mojo Workin'," "I Can't Be Satisfied," "My Eyes (Keep Me in Trouble"), Howlin Wolf ("Killin' Floor," "Evil," "Going Down Slow"), and John Lee Hooker ("Walkin' the Boogie," "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer") holding court for your edification. No, there is no blues university, but if there was one, the above masters would surely be the instructors and Chess Blues would certainly be the required text. As I said, it's packed with an amazing 101 songs, many of the best blues tracks ever recorded. There are a few clunkers, but very few. You will spend many enjoyable hours listening to this collection. (Trust me, it takes a few hours to listen to 101 songs once!) Get it today, and enroll in the best blues education money can buy!

This handsome boxset, complete with a large booklet, is a superb addition to your blues collection, even if you already have the best of the major Chess artists such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson II.

There are bound to be some tracks, especially by Waters and the Wolf, that overlap with what most blues lovers already own, but the "Chess Blues" compilers have done a very fine job assembling dozens of rarer tracks by artists like Robert Nighthawk, Sunnyland Slim, Otis Rush, Memphis Minnie McCoy, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Elmore James, Jimmy Oden and many others. And these high quality tracks, which make up the vast majority of the 101 cuts, make "Chess Blues" a very welcome supplement to the many available compilations featuring Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson II and Little Walter Jacobs.