Artist: Howlin' Wolf

Some very fine music here, 2008-06-19
This is a wonderful album and has a lot to recommend it. It's a builder, and the more you hear it, the more you realise is there. I would just suggest you get a copy, you won't be disappointed. Great stuff.

Artist: Howlin' Wolf

Chester Burnett's ferocious growl was a staple of Chicago's electric-blues heyday. This 20-song compilation ranges from his 1951 debut "Moanin' at Midnight" with Willie Johnson on guitar to 1964's "Killing Floor" with Buddy Guy on guitar. His scratchy, sawed-off vocal approach and his energetic harmonica grace original classics such as "How Many More Years" and "Smokestack Lightnin'". By 1960, he became, along with Muddy Waters, the foremost interpreter of Willie Dixon's songs, lending his coarse voice to legendary Dixon cuts such as "Wang Dang Doodle", "Back Door Man", "Spoonful", "The Red Rooster", and "I Ain't Superstitious". Wolf's style was based on primal raw power, and he ranks among the genre's most distinctive performers. --Marc Greilsamer
like draging hot glass across asphalt, 2005-05-23
This has to be one of my favourite blues albums, this really is good. Once you've heard killing floor you will be sold, and once you hear wolf's voice you will never forget it.

Artist: Howlin' Wolf

He is very good, very good., 2010-04-16

Yep, this is great music. He was one of the best and leaves us plenty of recordings to remember him by. This one is excellent.

Artist: Howlin' Wolf

This package combines blues giant Howlin' Wolf's first two albums, themselves compilations of his singles released between 1951 and 1962. Apart from two tracks cut in Memphis with Ike Turner, these Chess Studios recordings are landmarks in the development of electric Chicago blues. The Mississippi Delta native's gruff persona towers over "Smokestack Lightnin'," "Red Rooster," "Spoonful," "Evil," "Wang Dang Doodle," "Back Door Man," and others that have become standards since being "discovered" by the Rolling Stones, Clapton, The Doors, et al. Almost as influential as Wolf's bottomless growl are the guitar playing of Hubert Sumlin and the writing and direction of Willie Dixon. An exceptional twofer value for such a weighty slice of American musical history. --Ben Edmonds
Essential Wolf, 2004-11-25
This is the most essential single Howlin' Wolf CD there could possibly be and would make an excellent first purchase for a Howlin' Wolf novice. It comprises The Wolf's first two long-player releases, both what we would now regard as compilations, and was put out by Chess/MCA in 1986.
Moanin' In The Moonlight came out in America in 1959 and was made up of 12 selected A-sides and B-sides from the many 78's he released between 1951 and 1958, all monaural, including such classics as Smokestack Lightnin' and I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline). The LP kicks off with Moanin' At Midnight and How Many More Years, comprising both sides of his first Chess single, recorded in Memphis by Sam Phillips at what would become the Sun studios, long before Howlin' Wolf moved to Chicago. The songs on this LP are among the most elemental, eerie and powerful pieces of music ever committed to tape.
Equally compelling is the second collection, usually known as the Rocking Chair album, released in the US in January 1962, when the genre was presented as the root of "Music Americana". It contained 3 previously unreleased songs recorded between May and December 1961, and 9 that were on 45's released in 1960 and 1961 (though two were recorded in 1957), but all in stereo. 
Famous songs include The Red Rooster, Wang Dang Doodle, Back Door Man and the Wolf's famous variation of Spoonful (he would have learned the original, fairly dissimilar Spoonful Blues from Charlie Patton) - though all staple fare for a million blues and rock bands ever since, none could match the intensity and darkness of these originals (although the Rolling Stones' Little Red Rooster came close). Most were written by Willie Dixon, who plays bass throughout, though there are a couple credited to Howlin' Wolf and a cover of St Louis Jimmy Oden's Goin' Down Slow, on which, unusually, the recitation is spoken by Willie Dixon.
The division of stereo and mono recordings is not declared anywhere on the CD and seems somewhat arbitrary, especially since Who's Been Talkin' (stereo), Tell Me (stereo) and Somebody In My Home (mono) were all recorded on 24 June 1957.
A note in the sleeve reads, "In our effort to bring you the originals for the cost of a single CD, we have omitted one selection due to the length of the combined original albums." Given the playing time of 66 minutes this is a very irritating message, but in my quest to discover the identity of the missing selection, after consulting several online discographies as far as I can tell it seems that all tracks are present and correct

Artist: Junior Wells

This 1965 album is where vocalist and harmonica player Junior Wells comes into his own. An early collaboration with Buddy Guy, the two of them sum up the 1960s funk-rock-blues that lay ahead. Hoodoo Man Blues inspired Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton and a host of other musician-fans. Wells and Guy don't shy from creating James Brown-funkified blues, or from putting a rock edge to their blues; but neither do they shy from traditional blues. Their version of "Good Morning Little School Girl" is a proper update--still menacing, with less of a country blues feel. Also not to be missed is the instrumental workout "Chitlin Con Carne". --Robert Gordon
Hoodoo Man Blues, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy - The first true blues album, 2009-09-28
A historic first in the history of recorded music, this wonderful album is generally considered to be the first Blues album. Recorded in 1965, albums had been around for a while, but the great blues singers and labels tended to record singles, and what albums had been put out were merely collections of singles. This was the first time a series of recordings had been made with the intention of making an album.

Even without the notable first, this would still be an essential album for any blues lover's collection. Here we have not one, but two masters of the genre starting out on their careers. We have the incomparable Junior Wells on harp and vocals, and one of my long time blues guitar heroes Buddy Guy showing us just why he would become a legend.

This is down and dirty Chicago blues of the highest order. It kicks off with the attention grabbing `snatch it back and hold it', which really sets the mood. The band then proceed to grind their way through a set of blues standards (including an impressive reworking of `good morning little schoolgirl', a tribute to the harp player extraordinaire of the previous generation, Sonny Boy Williamson I) and a couple of originals. Junior Wells shows time and time again why Muddy Waters chose him as successor to Little Walter when he left Water's band. His harmonica playing is tuneful and emotional, played with great passion. And his vocals are sublime. And as for Buddy Guy's guitar work - it just doesn't get better.

This CD from Delmark presents the original album in stereo with a decent sound quality. There are two bonus alternative takes, one of the anthemic `hoodoo man blues', and the superb instrumental workout `chitli' con carne'. These are interesting and add to the album. The liner notes contain a short essay on Junior Wells, and limited track details.

All in all, a superb release, and a must for any blues fan, not only for the historical significance, but for the quality of the music. 5 stars.

Artist: Slim Harpo

Mississippi bluesman James Isaac Moore made the bulk of his recordings at JD Miller's Crowley, Louisiana studio, accounting for the deep, swampy sound and creeping rhythms of his hit singles. Another important influence on the Stones, Harpo's debut 1957 single "I'm A King Bee's" compulsive, chicken-scratch guitar motif became an essential part of their early sound. Although Ace have released a comprehensive series covering Slim's years with the Excello label, this Best Of draws together all the classic singles: "Baby Scratch My Back", "I Got Love If You Want It", "Rainin' In My Heart" (Louisiana pop of the highest order) and "Shake Your Hips" (rolling along with train-chugging intensity, rattling-sticks providing its percussion track). By 1967, he was recording in Nashville, producing even more light-footed material like "Te-Ni-Nee- Ni-Nu" and "Tip On In" ("let me see those fishnet hose", he drawls.). Harpo had it all: a bittersweet soul moan of a voice, a squealing, wounded-hound harmonica sound and a feel for mixing genres that found him picking from country, rock 'n' roll and soul, perfectly placed to be one of the funkiest, most danceable blues performers so ...
Can't fault this one, 2010-07-11
Harpo had one of those laid back drawling voices as easy on the ear as Fats Domino or Wilbert Harrison or Jimmy Reed.
However comparisons with the latter are as two exact opposites-Harpo was thoughly normal and had no drink problem.He kept the same wife for over 20 years and was no problem to promoters.Neither was he overtly ambitious-he rarely strayed from the South.
Slim Harpo was first covered in the 50s by Warren Smith on the Sun label but is more famous for the covers made by British artists.His own covers were usually known blues standards.
He proves that you don't have to screech your way through a song and is definitley more important than James Brown in my book

Artist: Jimmy Reed

BRILLIANT, 2007-06-26
Perhaps I am biased being a great fan of Jimmy Reed, however, I would strongly reccommend this album to any blues or rhythm & blues enthusiast. This has every track you could want from the great bluesman!

Artist: Paul Butterfield

A large amount of albums by young white men out of their minds in love with music made by older black men came from both sides of the Atlantic during the mid-1960s, but two records really laid the groundwork for the decade's blues revival: the self-titled releases by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers out of London and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band out of Chicago. Both bands were led by harmonica-blowing vocalists; both featured ascending guitar gods--Eric Clapton with Mayall and Mike Bloomfield with Butterfield. Butterfield's ensemble, however, came of age closer to the roots of the music. The rhythm section heard on the group's 1965 debut was hired away from Howlin' Wolf and Butterfield, who was still in his early 20s, was already a familiar face on the Windy City's club circuit. "Born in Chicago" opens the album on a gritty note that never flags through this 11-track landmark. The slashing duo guitars of Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop and Butterfield's flash harp helped make Muddy Waters fathomable for a new audience and, decades later, it's still easy to understand how. --Steven Stolder
Born in Chicago - and it sounded like it!, 2008-09-21
The Butterfield Band's debut album from 1965 was traditional Muddy Waters-style Chicago blues but played with real power and authenticity that was miles ahead of any British band. It's hard to imagine now the impact it made at the time but I remember my jaw literally dropping when I heard the tough, forceful sound of "Born in Chicago" for the first time. Butterfield's harp is very much to the fore in many of the tracks and he gets a great thick, dirty wedge of sound that again no British player could get anywhere near. It's very much an ensemble record, played in an uncompromising traditional style and featuring wonderful songs by Elmore James, Little Walter and Junior Parker.

Although Butterfield didn't mean a great deal in Britain, in the States he was Alexis Korner and John Mayall rolled into one and inspired many of the harp players that came after him - Magic Dick, Kim Wilson, James Harman etc etc.

Artist: Little Walter

Marion "Little Walter" Jacobs is perhaps the most influential harmonica player on contemporary blues, and his collection is a great place to start. He was trained by Muddy Waters, but brought a more swinging feel to blues. Muddy and his band accompany Little Walter on many hits, as do Robert "Jr." Lockwood, the Aces, and other Chicago greats. In the 1950s, Little Walter's popularity eclipsed even Waters', his style a little more relaxed and pop-oriented. Walter's versions of many songs are the standards: "Blues with a Feeling," "You're So Fine," "Juke." Great stuff. --Robert Gordon
An utterly brilliant collection, 2009-04-09
All I can say is "WOW!!". Just buy it! It's as it says on the tin. His Best!

Artist: Charlie Musselwhite

A Blues Gem, 2010-03-17
My, oh my. This has to be one of best well-kept secrets of the 1960s. Well, for me at least, I only came across this album recently, and I was very pleasantly surprised.
Very much in the same vein as early Paul Butterfield, Musselwhite proves here that he is a bluesman. And with Harvey Mandel on the guitar, himself with his own unique version of the blues (and, quite frankly, a superb guitarist) you can't go too far wrong. It was actually through finding out that Mandel plays on this album that I discovered it.
The entire album is very listenable, the work on the organ and the harmonica is top-notch, but my favourite track is perhaps "cha cha the blues" Where Harvey Mandel really lets loose.
Listen and enjoy.