*On Getting “Hip” To The Blues, The Delta Blues - A CD Primer

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Delta blues great, Bukka White, performing Aberdeen Mississippi Blues

CD Review

The Rough Guide To Delta Blues, various artists, World Music Network, 2002

Okay so the blues have got your attention. Maybe you heard it as background music while traveling and can’t get that sound out of your head, or heard someone strumming in some urban square trying to scratch a few pennies out of those little chords on a guitar. Whatever. You are hooked, or at least intrigued. So you need a little primer of the guys (mainly, guys, but not exclusively so) who taught the guys who taught the guys who you heard on that street corner or in some current concert hall. That is where this nice little CD comes in. In one place and at one sitting you will most of the key guitarists who created the beat and the singers who put words to the mournful sounds about hard women, hard work, hard living and hard liquor. Names like Tommy Johnson, Skip James, Son House, of course, Muddy Waters, Charley Patton and so on.

But wait a minute this is only the beginning of the journey. From there you will need, desperately need, to hear the material John and Alan Lomax recorded back in the days down in the South when these guys were still alive. And, of course, check out Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. Oh, ya, don’t forget the women blues singers who got more renown when they were alive and filling the gin mils and concert halls. And the blues as it moved north to places like Chicago and Detroit. And then people like the Stones, Rory Block, and others who cover the old classics. And don’t forget the Cajun influences, And Tex-Mex, and…. Hell by the time you get done you will be an old codger or codgerette. But here is where you start.

I would direct your attention to several outstanding efforts here, first and foremost a great version of Sitting On Top Of The World by the under-appreciated Mississippi Sheiks; Tommy Johnson on Cool Drink of Water Blues; the incredible Bukka White and his flailing National Steel guitar on Aberdeen Mississippi Blues;, and, Louise Johnson’s On The Wall.