The best blues albums

A hundred years ago only blacks in the Deep South were seized by the blues. Now the whole world begins to know them.

— Alan Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began

I am not sure if Lomax’s statement is intentionally ambiguous. He wrote it in the context of a world that is becoming increasingly anxious, and thus comes to know the blues. However, it is also true that blues music specifically is much more widely known today compared to a hundred years ago. Indeed, there was hardly such a thing as “blues music” a hundred years ago. Artists singing about their blues rarely cared to label such things, and record companies mostly referred to the genre as “race records”—an euphemism for music by African-Americans.

Yet, for its increased popularity, it is also true that, as far as new recordings are concerned, blues music is dead. In this, it has mostly been a victim of its own success. The musical intelligence, the lyrical honesty, the eccentricity and playfulness that blues music has always been characterized by have influenced practically every genre of music that has come after it; and in influencing new genres, has evolved with them to the point where it is no longer the blues. Most recently, this has happened with the umbrella genre “Americana”, after which almost no new recordings use the label “Blues”, even if the music itself shares traditional blues qualities.

Labels notwithstanding, blues music itself continues to resonate within every genre, and just as importantly, has left a treasure trove of history in the form of recorded albums that continue to delight modern listeners and, as Alan Lomax noticed, speak to feelings which are similar, if not in intensity, then at least in character, to those of the original bluesmen. Here I have collected and ranked the 27 best albums of the genre’s hundred-plus year history. Since those are the best of the best, the lowest ranked album in this list is still an album that I would heartily recommend to anyone, regardless of their musical preferences.

Ranking and comparing works of art is inherently a fool’s errand, but, like many fool’s errands, is an entertaining one. In that spirit, I make no claims of objectivity in terms of the records included, of those that did not make it into the list, as well as of the overall rankings. The blues listener will find herein both the usual inclusions, as well as some surprise ones. Those less familiar with the genre will, if they decide to dip their toes into it, find a healthy mix of well-known and obscure, of legendary and unusual, of celebrated and forgotten.

To make the list richer in context, for each entry I have included brief descriptions of the album itself, highlighted interesting facts or trivia about the artist, and often topped it off with personal thoughts of questionable relevance. I have also included the cover art for each album, although, given how many of these records were compiled posthumously, and therefore have cover arts that the original artists knew nothing about, I would not advise relying on those too heavily, as the links between the music and the visual art is by necessity not as strong as it usually is when an artist has a direct oversight of that aspect of their work.

27. Bessie Smith — The Ultimate Collection

Recorded: 1923–1933

Released: 2008 (H&H Music)

At the height of her popularity, the Columbia record company marketed Bessie Smith as the “queen of the blues”, but national media quickly promoted her to the “empress of the blues”—a title that she would continue to be remembered by for many years. Coming immediately after the trailblazing efforts of Ma Rainey and Mammie Smith (no relation to Bessie), Bessie Smith cut her first records for Columbia’s “race records” division in 1923 to an immediate success. For the rest of the 1920s, she would record some 160 numbers for Columbia, making her one of the company’s most successful artists at the time.

Full of swagger and irreverence, Bessie’s songs dealt equally well with controversial issues as well as commonplace ones. This compilation record provides an excellent overview of the best moments of her career. Songs like Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out and Jailhouse Blues would become blues standards for generations to follow, while Aggravatin’ Papa, You’ve Been a Good Ole Wagon, and Send Me to the ’Lectric Chair showcase her playfulness and nonchalance which has rarely been matched not only in blues, but in recorded music more generally.

In contrast to the emotionally charged and potent deliveries of Bessie Smith, one cannot help but feel that her backing bands, which almost always consisted of hardened, professional musicians, such as Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, Joe Smith, and Charlie Green, often failed to follow her artistic drift. This incongruity sometimes gives the records a certain dated feeling, which, paradoxically, has nothing to do with the time in which they were recorded, as there are other albums from the same period that sound perfectly timeless.

It is likely that Bessie Smith herself recognized that, as she reportedly tried to make an artistic pivot into jazz and swing, which was quickly gaining in prominence at the time. By all accounts, however, she was being stifled by producers who were encouraging her to keep in line with the style that she had become known for. Later, the Great Depression had a devastating effect on music, sparing not even the empress of the blues herself, who was dismissed by Columbia in 1931. Nevertheless, the artistic pivot that Bessie Smith had envisioned for herself would probably have happened eventually, were it not for a car crash on Highway 61 in 1937 which led to her untimely death.

26. Champion Jack Dupree — Blues from the Gutter

Recorded: 1958

Released: 1958 (Atlantic)

Dupree’s first record evokes a very specific atmosphere—a barrelhouse out of ways, wooden tables, sawdust on the floor, old men down on their luck staring into misty glasses of beer, and a piano player in the corner alternating between fast boogie-woogie and lethargic blues. Dupree’s vocals on this are serviceable if not exceptional, and the backing band provides minimal accompaniment. As a result, the listener gets a personal treatment to the stories as well as Jack Dupree’s masterful piano playing.

The mix of blues standards (Frankie & Johnny, Stack-o-Lee, Goin’ Down Slow) and Dupree originals is harmonized by the common thread of traditional blues themes that run through every song—bad mamas, hard life blues, and nasty boogie-woogie, among others. The candid treatment of drugs and addiction on Junker’s Blues and Can’t Kick the Habit is said to have surprised some people, but that is more likely due to the particular circumstances of the time rather than the material itself.

Prior to the 1950s, blues music was primarily marketed to black people, and usually played in black-segregated juke joints and honky tonks, so there was usually little to no top-down oversight from record labels and government in regards to the content of the songs. By the time of this album’s release, the artificial barriers had largely been broken down and blues music and its offshoots were becoming a national taste. It was in that context that some listeners were probably taken aback by what are otherwise common themes.

What is slightly surprising, given the authentic and honest sound of these songs, is that Jack Dupree himself reportedly did not use any drugs throughout his life, and was only a light drinker. I find it interesting to speculate on what drove him to write and perform so extensively about these subjects on this and subsequent records. In any case, it is slightly ironic that Dupree’s performance makes this record an excellent one to put on, kick back, and indulge in your favorite vice to.

25. Memphis Minnie — Killer Diller Blues

Recorded: 1929–1953

Released: 2018 (Blues Classics)

I got so many chickens, can’t tell my roosters from my hens,
I got so many chickens, can’t tell my roosters from my hens,
I’ve got to go back now, and look ’em all over again.

A compilation album which does a good job of condensing Memphis Minnie’s huge catalog into 24 of her best singles, Killer Diller Blues includes the best of the two sides of Memphis Minnie that makes her stand out from other artists. On the one hand, playful, saucy tunes like My Butcher Man and Plymouth Rock Blues are an insight into the real Memphis Minnie—the one behind the obvious marketing cutout of a feminine, gentle, lady-like figure that her recording label liked to present. On the other hand, deeply introspective numbers like Nothing In Rambling and especially I Hate To See The Sun Go Down are remarkable for their outpour of individuality and introspection, characteristics which seem to anticipate the singer-songwriter movement in popular music by several decades.

What is missing, not only in this record, but in Memphis Minnie’s body of work as a whole, is storytelling, which is a type of blues completely distinct from the two mentioned above. While there are certainly tracks with lyrical progression on here, Memphis Minnie rarely lets herself loose in a narrative sense. This is not a criticism—even the most creative artists generally do most of their work in areas they find comfortable. Yet, I can’t help but speculate about the role that pressures from record labels must have played in those decisions, since Memphis Minnie generally seems like a character with many stories to tell, and she would not have been the first one “guided” away from a certain style by concerned producers.

24. Canned Heat — Boogie With Canned Heat

Recorded: 1967

Released: 1968 (Liberty)

Canned Heat’s first albums are highly reminiscent of what The Rolling Stones did with their first few records—modern, electrifying boogie that remains deeply grounded in the unending well of traditional blues. What the Heat did better than the Stones in that arena was to add their own original blues material and blend it with the classics. In Boogie With Canned Heat, traditional blues-inspired tracks like Evil Woman, On The Road Again and Whiskey-Headed Woman No. 2 are blended perfectly with the Heat originals that comprise the rest of the LP.

Stylistically, the album tells a story in two halves. The first part, more subdued and reverent, at times even reticent, is unceremoniously severed by the electrifying riff after the chorus on Turpentine Moan:

Well what you gonna do when your troubles get like mine?
Well what you gonna do when your troubles get like mine?
You’ll take a mouth full of sugar, drink a bottle of turpentine.

From that point onward, the album transforms into a creative medley of howling, good rocking, abstract folk, psychedelic riffs, anti-drug songs, and an 11-minute closing track which lets each member take control of the song for as long as they like and express their philosophy for the boogie.

The mischievous delight that the band takes in breaking down conventions, experimenting with forms and topics, but above all, in having a good time and just boogie-ing is so well captured in this record that it is positively infectious. It is with some justification that this album is seen as the first successful hippie record, but it is more than that. Even the “song with a message” here— Amphetamine Annie—is light-hearted, upbeat, half-serious-half-facetious, self-deprecating, and good-natured—all qualities that are foreign to the hippie mindset. As such, even if this record is the first successful hippie record, it remains a much more complex, engaging, and fun one than all the ones that came after it.

23. T-Bone Walker — T-Bone Blues

Recorded: 1955–1957

Released: 1959 (Atlantic)

They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad.

The blues of the blues. The sound of a weeping guitar, the taste of molasses, the smell of rain on a cloudy day. By the time of this record’s release, T-Bone was already a seasoned blues veteran and it shows—he is confident enough to let his guitar speak when it needs to, and experienced enough to be authoritative when he feels like it’s his turn to deliver the words. In some sense, T-Bone and his guitar deliver a two-man show on this album, and they inspire each other to greatness.

The highlight of the album is, of course, Stormy Monday Blues, one of the greatest individual blues songs ever recorded—a self-contained microcosm of life; despondence, hope, bliss, prayer. The important point that the song drives, over and above the identification of the core emotions of life, is that all of this is not a progression, it is a cyclical process—it repeats, just like weeks do, for better or for worse.

The rest of the album follows a typical T-Bone groove, an interplay of staccato and legato—the yin and yang of the blues, with woefully blue and endearingly simple lyrics like:

I drink to keep from worryin’
Mama and I smile to keep from cryin’
That’s to keep the public from knowin’
Just what I have on my mind.

As a whole, this album is an adequate exposition of why T-Bone is one of the first names to appear in the mind when the blues are mentioned.

22. Blind Lemon Jefferson — King of the Country Blues

Recorded: 1926–1929

Released: 1984 (Yazoo)

The music of Blind Lemon has a certain primordial quality to it, not to be confused with the dated sound that we hear in Bessie Smith and others. Indeed, because the music seems to come from a place where time does not exist, as far as the listener is concerned, it is just as likely to be from 100 years in the future as it is to be from 100 years in the past. Throwing the concept of time completely out of the window, this record presents in its place a feeling of causal precedence to the material, a feeling of genesis, as if one has reached the bedrock of recorded blues.

Another characteristic of this album is that Blind Lemon Jefferson himself remains completely inaccessible, despite there being no other artists on any of the songs. There is a distinct feeling that Blind Lemon is just a conduit through which unnamed crowds of bluesmen have chosen to make themselves heard. This can account for the varying themes and styles, from spirituals to mournful blues to rowdy boogie-woogie.

Because of its atemporal and opaque nature, this album is perhaps the least accessible one on the list. It transports the listener to a place where most things as we know them did not exist yet, or, more accurately, to a place where everything existed at once. This can be disorienting at first, but if the listener hangs around enough to get their bearings, they will be rewarded with music that is stripped down to its core components, unadorned and bare, archetypal, primeval, and full of impetus and direction.

21. Guitar Slim — The Things That I Used To Do

Recorded: 1953–1955

Released: 1970 (Specialty)

There is not much to say about this album besides that it is the best of sweet lovin’ blues, rhythmic, distorted guitar solos, melancholy, and backing brass bands.

Despite what his name suggests, Guitar Slim is actually mostly remembered for his unique voice, a sort of a softer, melancholy tone with a distinctive drawl, that he nevertheless liked to let loose, especially on some of the more upbeat records, which made him instantly recognizable on the radio.

Well, I Done Got Over It is my favorite track on this, although The Things That I Used to Do is also excellent and is by far the most popular Guitar Slim song. As a whole, it is a perfect record to throw in the background while relaxing or reminiscing about good times.

20. Elmore James — The Sky Is Crying

Recorded: 1951–1961

Released: 1993 (Rhino)

Slides, slides, sldies. Keeping with the same ’50s rhythm and blues style from the previous entry, Elmore James elevates the style by using his pointed vocals to break through the music and speak directly to the emotions. The opening lines on the title song: “the sky is crying… look at the tears roll down the street…” remain some of the most emotionally charged in all blues music, and the song itself can rival T-Bone’s Stormy Monday as the greatest individual recording. Elmore’s masterful blue wailing propels most other cuts on this record as well, and it forces the listener to pay attention.

Where this record really breaks out from most other R&B compilations from that period however is the lyrical potency that infuses tracks like It Hurts Me Too, which condenses into a few lines the unbearable pain of seeing a loved one being hurt. Of course, playful and unabashed lyrics are not in short supply either, most noticeably on Standing at the Crossroads, which conjures up the classical imagery of a bluesman at the crossroads, and “poor Elmore sinkin’ down”, but also delivers delightful lines like:

I work hard for my baby, she treat me like a slave,
I work hard for my baby, she treat me like a slave,
Yes, she must be tired of living, I’ll put her six feet in the grave.

Although it is primarily the emotional delivery and the lyrical charge that make this record stand out, it is also, in a sense, more than the sum of its parts. It is not simply that as a listener, one enjoys these elements in isolation. In practice, they all work off of each other to have an exponential cumulative effect on the listening experience. The sky would not be crying as hard if it was not followed by Elmore’s signature guitar slide to make its tears flow down the street. All in all, an excellent rhythm and blues record.

19. Jimi Hendrix — Blues

Recorded: 1966–1970

Released: 1994 (MCA)

Better known for other works, Hendrix nevertheless recorded a surprising number of blues tracks. While they are not as genre-defining as the Jimi Hendrix Experience albums, they showcase the characteristic supernatural symbiosis that Hendrix achieved with his instrument. On this point, it is often said of Hendrix’s music that it transcends conceptual understanding. I am not sure that conceptual understanding is something to be transcended, but it is definitely bypassed here. For example, it is impossible to listen to Electric Church Red House and hear the riff-ridden lines

Wait a minute something’s wrong…
Wait a minute something’s wrong…

and not feel, in the back of your mind, that something is really, terribly wrong. Of course, nothing is actually wrong, but that is the kinetic power of Hendrix and his electric guitar.

Most tracks on this compilation album are instrumentals, studio jams, and demos, obviously not intended for release. This is by no means an issue, since it fits nicely into the rugged and unforced ethos of the blues. But it is on the few cover tracks, which are by definition more complete and polished, that the full potential of Hendrix Blues is unfolded. For me, the highlight of the album is Mannish Boy, an upbeat upwards spiral of guitar licks, hollers, and good time. It is interesting to speculate on the foundational role of the blues in Hendrix’s craft, and this compilation provides one window through which to observe that.

18. Lightnin’ Hopkins — Lightnin’ Hopkins

Recorded: 1959

Released: 1959 (Folkways)

The story goes like this: by the late ’50s, the rock and roll revolution that was ushered in at the start of the decade and crystallized by Elvis was starting to become stale. As one music historian pointed out at the time: “they don’t even sing, they just get in front of the mic and shout”. In any case, the attention of listeners was slowly turning back towards the roots, towards the infinite spring wells of folk and blues. Recording companies, like sharks scenting blood, immediately began sending out their agents to hunt for old bluesmen and record them in hopes of capitalizing on the old new taste.

It is in this context that one Samuel Charters was desperately asking around the streets of Houston for Lightnin’ Hopkins—an established bluesman of the ’40s and early ’50s who had largely disappeared from sight. In Texan blues circles, Lightnin’ was known for his rugged, stripped-down acoustic style—precisely what was now coming back in demand.

When Charters finally found Lightnin’, he was “down and out”, living in a one-bedroom apartment, having pawned his two guitars to make ends meet. He was not interested in recording music. Charters took an unusual approach to rouse the sleeping giant—instead of trying to convince him to go down to a studio and record some numbers, Charters offered to buy back Lightnin’s guitars and record right then and there—in the small one bedroom apartment. When Lightnin’ remained unconvinced, Charters sweetened the pot by offering to buy him a bottle of gin from the corner liquor store. That sealed it. In this way—in exchange for pocket money and a bottle of booze—Charters set up his portable recording equipment, and a few hours later was walking back to his studio with one of the most legendary blues records of all time.

Naturally, the album became popular and is now remembered for its skeletal production and harrowing, lonesome lyrics. One overlooked element of this album is the insight into the identity of Lightnin’ Hopkins that it provides. In the stories that he tells in his music, closed ones refer to him by his real name—Sam, while his own point of view is also expressed in the third person, but always by his stage name—Lightnin’. This dissociation between the bluesman (poor Lightnin’) and the man (Sam) is a window through which the internal contradiction between how one sees oneself and how one is seen by others surfaces on the lyrics-level. Consider the following lines from Come and Go With Me:

I wouldn’t lie for nothin’, ’fore I lie I’d shed my mouth,
I wouldn’t lie for nothin’, ’fore I lie I’d shed my mouth,
Well my wife she tell me: “I see you lyin’ Sam, every time you walk about”.

And from Trouble Stay ’Way From My Door:

I’m wondering why baby, you keep thinking so much wrong with me,
I’m wondering why baby, you keep thinking so much wrong with me,
Yeah you know if I been a bad man darling,
Poor Lightnin’ didn’t intend to be.

Here, presumably, the “baby” is criticizing Sam, but if Sam’s been bad, it’s poor Lightnin’ who didn’t intend to be so. This phenomenological treatment of the self—alternating between the self as seen by the self and the self as seen by others—is repeated throughout the album and offers a candid and deeply personal exposition of Lightnin’s identity.

In addition, in the short interview track Reminiscences of Blind Lemon, we hear Lightnin’ addressing, with the same candor, his experiences with his mentor Blind Lemon Jefferson. Taken together, these elements combine to make the album one of the most intimate and personal records in blues history, and offer a layer of curiosity that “hides” just under the surface of the excellent music that covers it.

17. Wynonie Harris — Lovin’ Machine

Recorded: 1948–1951

Released: 1970 (King)

When describing Wynonie Harris’s music, reviewers usually opt for suggestive adjectives—“rowdy”, “lascivious”, “bawdy”, “dirty”. In fact, his music is simply sexual. Wynonie himself never shied away from this. When asked about the appeal of his music, he stated simply: “I deal in sex”. There are interesting nuances which will never be explored if we are just looking for a circumlocutious ways of describing sexual music.

For example, despite being obviously sexually charged, Wynonie’s songs were never vulgar or obscene, they were simply a product of a man who sings about what is close to his heart. In sharp contrast, later iterations of “rowdy” music developed a penchant for playing on the sexual thematic merely to get a reaction or to be seen as uncomforming. Technically, all of these types fall under the vague semantic umbrella of “lascivious” and “dirty”, but they are as different as night and day.

Despite being primarily a performer rather than a songwriter, most of Wynonie’s cuts seem to be a mirror of his personal life. In hindsight, we might see him as a typical rockstar—partial to a good party, easy on the women, and hard on the booze. Of course, there was no such thing as a “rockstar” at the time, and his lifestyle was mostly seen as idiosyncratic, rather than stereotypical. It would take a few decades and a few dozen subsequent rockstars for that way of living to become a common trope in rock music and show business more broadly.

Inexplicably, the debt that rock and roll music owes Wynonie is rarely recognized and never paid. He noticed as much himself during his life, speaking on one occasion about Elvis specifically:

Many people have been giving him trouble for swinging his hips. I swing mine and have no trouble. He’s got publicity I could not buy.

By the time of his death in 1969, Wynonie Harris was all but forgotten.

This compilation album includes all of the essential cuts with minimum fluff, and the record runs at the very agreeable duration of 31 minutes. While the duration will vary between artists depending on how extensive their essential cuts are, this is, broadly speaking, what every compilation record should aim to be. King Records probably realized that they had done an incredible job and quickly sought to remedy that by reissuing this album with a second LP attached to it which included mostly miscellaneous tracks that do not add anything besides minutes on the clock. I highly recommend listening to the original 12-track version or only the first LP of the later 2xLP version.

16. Howlin’ Wolf — Moanin’ in the Moonlight

Recorded: 1951–1959

Released: 1959 (Chess)

The ’50s in Chicago were truly a mythical time-place in blues history. On any given night, you might expect to hear the blue wailings of former plantation workers, guitars amplified by electricity, distorted harmonicas, or incinerating pianos. As with any other music scene, the Chicago scene was marked by several towering figures who stood out above the rest.

Among the most powerful and menacing of those was the prowling Howlin’ Wolf—a 191cm mountain of a man, black as black can be, with the physique of a bull and the voice to match. Despite performing more or less in the typical Chicago-influenced Delta style, Howlin’ Wolf existed in his own sub-genre. There was simply nobody else that could match his vocal projections or his deep, guttural howls that seemed to be coming from the bowels of the Earth itself. If somebody told me that the ground shook when Howlin’ Wolf was performing on the Chicago circuit, I would believe it.

This album combines his most well known singles from the ’50s, a period in which the Wolf moved from relative obscurity to being one of the biggest names in the blues at the time. While he continued to make music and to release acclaimed records until his untimely death in the ’70s, Moanin’ in the Moonlight remains the staple of his catalog, owing to its primal nature and the insatiable hunger of a young blues star.

The highlight of the album is Smokestack Lightnin’, a song which always has and always will find its way near the top of all blues playlists. The booming howls which penetrate the song at every intermission continue to haunt the auditory memory of every listener for years to come. Another immediately recognizable blues standard here is the ominous Evil, a song steeped in deep anxiety and menace. The rest of the record maintains a consistently high level, with Howlin’ Wolf and his band not allowing the listener a moment of respite. A true classic of the genre.

15. Blind Willie Johnson — Sweeter as the Years Go By

Recorded: 1927–1930

Released: 1991 (Yazoo)

Blind Willie Johnson is the stem that links the deep roots of church spirituals to the tree of recorded blues music. When Blind Willie Johnson walked into a makeshift studio on a hot summer day in Mississippi to record John the Revelator, he was drawing on a hundred-plus year of history of black folk and church music.

What created such a strong bond between black folk and the church is a story in its own right, but a cursory treatment will reveal factors like natural piety, affinity for ritual, reverence, and fear. These factors, alongside the broader general appeal of Christianity, the even broader appeal of organized religion, and undoubtedly many more reasons made blacks in the New World especially receptive to the call of Christianity, and European-American settlers were only too eager to impose their cult on anyone and everyone who had ears to listen.

But religion was only one part of it. The particular circumstances of the American south as it related to the role of black people made the church not only a regular house of God and a refuge for the faithful, but also a cultural and community beacon.

First, slavery; subsequently, slavery in all but name, meant for blacks a life of peonage, subjugation, and humiliation—a life which often kicked them in the face and asked them to smile and show gratitude to the boot. In this life, alongside many other rights that were denied to them, often they could not freely socialize or form gatherings with others outside of their immediate family, lest they be accused of trying to form a “nigger gang”.

However, going to church on Sundays showed piety and humility, which pleased the white devil immensely and was therefore permitted, if not encouraged. The church then became a beacon for social gatherings, and one of the only places where blacks could practice their natural human right of freedom of association. What is more, since churches were, of course, racially segregated, blacks could also have a relative respite from the omnipresent white slavedriver breathing down their necks. It was in this context that the spirituals were born—a genre thematically grounded in the Bible but ultimately used as a vehicle to express the collective pain and suffering which was inflicted on a people living in a Hell of man’s own making.

Much has been written about the church spirituals of the deep south. Ethnographers who have visited black church sessions marvel at the sense of community and the continuation, transformation, and evolution of culture that the spirituals embodied. Here, the struggles of the ordinary man were combined with African folk tales and Biblical figures to form an unlikely combination that echoed from the walls of the town churches. Musicians who were present often lament the impossibility of writing down the sounds they were hearing in traditional European musical notation, owing to the intricate polyphonies, bendings, and improvisations which characterized that style of music.

These “hallies”, as they were sometimes called (short for “hallelujahs”), were participative in nature. They were cumulative as well—usually starting slow, perhaps with a thrown remark or two regarding the story that the deacon was delivering to the mass. The deacon then would start singing some of the lines, improvising as he went along. The more enthusiastic of the congregation would join, which would encourage the rest. The levels would, in this way, rise to boiling point and far beyond, and it was not uncommon for women to have fainting fits by the end of the session.

With Blind Willie Johnson and his wife, who accompanies him on some of the tracks on this album, we only hear a faint echo of that communal spirit, of that polyphony, of that overlap, reverberated down the decades. For what has been lost of the communal spirit, however, Blind Willie Johnson makes up with individuality. His powerful, grating voice spurs on the songs in directions that they are not accustomed to, and just when they think they have found their footing, he rejoins with another line, lashing it upon them like a whip on a mule’s back. This individual direction and impetus which Blind Willie Johnson brings stands in sharp contrast to the communal nature in which the spirituals emerged, and in that sense, the songs recorded on this album represent just another iteration of the infinite process of cultural transformation that sometimes crystalizes in art. It is the next step of the cultural processes that ethnographers were noticing in the churches.

Instead of trying to place a specific term or genre to the music, which will always be imprecise in any case, it is far more beneficial to just look at the broader history and context from which the music emerged, not for any taxonomical reasons, but simply because it can lead to greater appreciation of the art itself. In this case, the history and context run deep, deeper perhaps than any other album on this list. Nevertheless, we do not need to be experts of American history. A little familiarity goes a long way and will suffice, as the songs themselves will tell the rest. This compilation album includes most of Johnson’s best cuts, while running at half the length of the Complete Recordings. As such, it is a perfect starting point for the unfathomably deep world of the church spiritual.

14. Lead Belly — Easy Rider

Recorded: 1939–1949

Released: 2021 (Night Records)

The origins of the moniker “Lead Belly” are contradictory. Alan Lomax, who first met Lead Belly in Angola Penitentiary prison in Louisiana, tells us that it is due to Lead Belly’s resilience and hard-working ethics—that he was always the most performant worker and seemed to have a body that was made of steel or lead.

Big Bill Broonzy, a peer of Lead Belly’s, who used to work under his supervision shares a story that is the exact opposite of the one told by Lomax.

We always called him Lead, and a lot of people asked us why we call him Lead. Well, lead is something heavy and if you tie it to something it always holds it down. He’d always sit down all the time and that’s why we called him Lead.

Contradictions like these seem to swirl uncontrollably around every aspect of Lead Belly’s life. In this vortex, the gentle folk-singer who served prison time for murder and attempted homicide, among a score of other criminal charges, sings authentically against the evils of injustice on Bourgeois Blues and Mr. Hitler. The celebrated bluesman—the first American country blues figure to achieve commercial success in Europe—is mostly remembered for the purely folk renditions like Where Did You Sleep Last Night and Good Night Irene.

Given his elusive nature, it is not surprising that no compilation of Lead Belly’s songs has managed to adequately capture his body of work. Even the Complete Recorded Works which were released in 7 volumes between 1994 and 1999 and run for well over 8 hours somehow seem to miss the point, which is curious if not paradoxical. With that in mind, we can say this 46-minute Night Records compilation release from 2021 does a good enough job under the circumstances. In it, we have the best of the blues numbers that made Lead Belly known in his lifetime, such as Good Morning Blues and See See Rider alongside the folk tunes which he is posthumously remembered for. Because of some obvious omissions, it may not be the perfect introduction to Lead Belly, but then again I am not really sure what is.

In any case, we have a decent stylistic balance with this compilation and a touchpoint for each of the major strengths in Lead Belly’s works. I particularly enjoy Take This Hammer which tells the story of the mythical folk hero John Henry, who dies after performing a superhuman feat of strength. This is without a doubt the most widely covered narrative in black folk music.

Usually, the song is sung with an air of defiance and respect to John Henry’s physical strength, more broadly seen as a testament to the unyielding nature of the black man. Lead Belly’s version is, in comparison, markedly softer and more personal, and it seems to hint at the regret in John Henry’s final moments. It is nevertheless (contradictions again) driven by the chain-gang blues rhythm, with a pause and wah between every line. Prisoners in chain gangs tasked with manual work would sing these songs and swing their tools at each intermission, represented in the music by the vocalized wah that we hear on this song.

As good as an overview of Lead Belly’s works as you will find.

13. Albert King — Born Under a Bad Sign

Recorded: 1966–1967

Released: 1967 (Stax Records)

Born under a bad sign, I been down since I began to crawl,
If it wasn’t for bad luck, you know I wouldn’t have no luck at all.

The king of bad luck and trouble, Albert King, delivers a thoroughly professional performance on this short compilation album. True to its ethos or perhaps a victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy, Born Under a Bad Sign failed to reach any album charts upon its release. However, time has been kind to it, and it has since become one of the most highly acclaimed blues records, often finding itself at number one in many blues rankings. The critics who succeeded those who had initially panned the album upon its release just can’t seem to praise it highly enough. Irrespective of how this particular album has aged, the “business” of “critiquing” has aged rather poorly and I for one cannot wait for its swift and merciless death so that artists and listeners alike can breathe a collective sigh of relief and continue to do what they enjoy without being distracted by bullshit.

Coming back to the album, among the many things I find impressive about it is the fluidity which connects the different songs. This is in part, no doubt, due to the short tracks on the first half of the album, but I believe it is also a testament to Albert King’s confidence and mastery of his craft that he is able to take control over different styles and present them in their best possible light, such that the listener enjoys an uninterrupted enjoyable experience. This is an underrated skill that is sometimes amiss even among the best—many excellent albums have painfully obvious “filler” songs, and this record is a proof of concept that fillers are not a necessary byproduct of the format. The album even ends with a slow, drawn-out ballad which would not be out of place in Frank Sinatra’s catalog.

I have some bones to pick with the mixing on this album, however. I rarely notice such things, but every time I listen to it I feel that the vocals are drowned out by the instruments. I turn up the volume only to have my ears blasted out by King’s otherwise delightful guitar bends. I do agree that both King and the backing band do an excellent job, but that would not have gone unnoticed if the vocal levels were more prominent. In any case, what can never be drowned out is King’s masterful guitar playing. The bending riffs on Personal Manager are a particular highlight and raise the already high level that was set at the beginning of the record. It is without a doubt an excellent album but I diverge from those who would have it as their number one.

12. Muddy Waters — The Chess Box

Recorded: 1947–1972

Released: 1989 (Chess)

In 1941, during his tours of the south, Alan Lomax stumbled upon a young Muddy Waters working on a plantation in Mississippi, and decided to “record a few sides with his portable recording equipment”¹, which would later be released as Down on Stovall’s Plantation. Even at that time, it was already obvious that Muddy had his own style and that he was not somebody that would be pressured into changing it up if he didn’t feel like it. Yet, time and again, record labels would try to shoehorn Muddy Waters into trends that he himself had little interest in.

An illustrative example of this comes when Chess convinced him, against his better judgement, to release a record that would fit into the electric, psychedelic wave of Jimi Hendrix. This resulted in a record called Electric Mud, which was poorly received by listeners, and which Muddy himself later described as “dogshit”.

Wasting the time of a generational talent like that is criminal, but the main point is that it should be fairly obvious, in hindsight, which cuts should make it into a “best of” type of compilation album, and which ones should probably be ignored. Yet, Muddy Waters is the other artist, alongside Lead Belly, whose best works were never captured on a single studio album or a compilation. It is not clear to me why that should be the case, but the case it is, and choosing which album to include for this entry was difficult.

First of all, I will not accept as valid any compilation of Muddy Waters which does not include Got My Mojo Working, and I am willing to die on that hill. Second, most compilations seem afraid not to include at least some of his bad songs, as if they are trying to retain impartiality and provide a “fair” overview of his work by including a little bit of everything. The Chess Box includes all of his classics, even if it is far too long for my liking. Yet, shorter compilations seem to be afraid to only include his most well known tracks, or else have other problems. Also, with artists like Muddy Waters, even his B-tier cuts are something that most other artists would give an arm and a leg to have recorded, so to have plenty of those on the record is not necessarily a bad thing.

But to speak of the positives, The Chess Box includes all the blues standards that Muddy recorded—Rolling Stone, Hoochie Coochie Man, Mannish Boy, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (and of course Got My Mojo Working), as well as many delightful deeper cuts. At his best, Muddy, like any master craftsman, does not need to think or to make any conscious decisions, his art just moves him and flows out of him, and he has the presence and the confidence to just let it happen.

Historically speaking, the music here is probably the most direct link between the blues and subsequent genres like rock. It sits so comfortably between these two genres which allows fans of both to thoroughly enjoy the album, and it is generally very accessible due to having so many layers of excellence, be that in the backing bands, the vocals, the lyrics, or the historical context. There is truly something for everyone to love here.

11. Albert Collins — Ice Pickin’

Recorded: 1978

Released: 1978 (Alligator Records)

What a good time this record is! Albert Collins takes the role of an entertainer and a storyteller and invites the listener to sit down, relax, and simply enjoy life in the company of some excellent music. Laid back does not even begin to describe how chill this album is. It is the reification of the romantic idea of going to a bar and watching a live performance where the artist engages with the patrons and the bartender lets the beers flow. This feeling culminates in Conversation with Collins, a 9-minute talking blues track which combines the obvious guitar mastery of Collins with his salt-of-the-earth persona to deliver a memorable performance.

I truly cannot say enough good things about this album. I have spent an inordinate amount of time searching for similar records and have found them to be few and far in between. I like to think that there is an alternate universe where this type of playful blues created its own movement which lasted for decades and produced dozens of albums of similar quality. It is a comforting thought. Until I can get there, I know I can keep revisiting this album indefinitely and never get tired of it.

10. Charley Patton — Founder of the Delta Blues

Recorded: 1929–1934

Released: 1971 (Yazoo)

The river’s rising high, the levee’s gonna break.
The back water done rolled and tumbled, drove poor Charley down the line.
I can’t stay here, I’m bound to go where it’s high.
Some people say the Green River blues ain’t that bad,
It must-a not been the Green River blues I had.

The music of Charley Patton is the music of the end of the world. Behind every line you can hear the brimstone and fire raining down upon the world. Whether it’s in the form of the Bo Weavil devastating the crops, the levee breaking and unleashing high water everywhere, or the wells running dry, the armageddon is undoubtedly upon us and Patton’s otherworldly vocals are the horsemen that have come to announce it. The feelings of inescapable dread and imminent doom are most perfectly captured in High Water Everywhere, Pt. 1², in which a flood of Biblical proportions has been unleashed upon Charley’s village, and he recounts:

The water at Greeville and Leland, Lord, it done rose everywhere
(Boy, you can’t never stay here.)
I would go down to Rosedale, but they tell me there’s water there.

The feeling of forlornness as the hope of moving somewhere else is destroyed by the realization that the water is there too is overwhelming. It places man in the position of insignificance in the face of natural disasters, which is almost unfathomable on a conceptual level to a species that feel themselves as masters of the natural world. The music here circumvents logical argument and violently and directly brings the listener to that position of insignificance, forcing them to feel what it would feel like to be there.

From start to finish, this is an incredibly intense album. Even in the song about Charley’s love for coffee he talks about shooting somebody down. The dread is ubiquitous and it goes far beyond the lyrical themes. The unrelenting energy with which Charley Patton hammers in every line in every song leaves no moments of respite. The guitar riffs that seem to fade into the void suggest some hidden danger. Even the bright red background on the album cover becomes ominous when it is in a context such as this.

It is not an easy-listening type of album by anyone’s standards, and I would rarely put it on just to kick back and relax, but there is no denying that the music is sublime. This is the first entry in the top 10, and a recurring theme for all the albums from here on will be that they become something more than music. In the case of Founder of the Delta Blues, the sheer intensity of the recordings carries a physical force that can sweep you up and drag you down if you are not prepared for it.

9. Big Mama Thornton — Big Mama Thornton And The Chicago Blues Band

Recorded: 1966

Released: 1966 (Arhoolie)

Blues to blow the roof off of your house. Big Mama is more than an explosive element on her own, but add the professionalism and the expressiveness of the Muddy Waters blues band and you get an absolute barn burner of an album. It is a testament to Big Mama’s authoritativeness that she can remain fully in control throughout the whole album when she is surrounded by people who in many cases are the best artists to ever touch their respective instruments. Even in the lulling periods of silence on some of the slower songs (Life Goes On, Everything Gonna Be Alright), the thing you can hear most clearly is Big Mama biding her time.

But where this album really launches the listener into the stratosphere is in the fast jump blues like the opener I’m Feeling Alright and Looking The World Over. The band is, of course, excellent, but it is Big Mama’s vocals that are the real propeller here. The only unfortunate aspect is that there are some Big Mama staples that did not make it into this album. In particular, a recording of Hound Dog with this crew would have been the howlin’ and hollerin’ cherry on top. But we do get a nice cut of Black Rat, which is a fair consolation.

8. Rolf Cahn & Eric Von Schmidt — Rolf Cahn & Eric Von Schmidt

Recorded: 1961

Released: 1961 (Folkways Records)

One of the hidden gems of the blues. While not completely unknown (Eric Von Schmidt in particular was a colorful figure who was friends with some the biggest names of the ’60s), this album specifically seems to have attracted little attention upon release, and has since been almost completely forgotten.

The album starts somewhat slowly, but the acoustic guitar duo sets the tone which works really well and things really kick into gear with Rolf Cahn’s version of Columbus Stockade. Composed entirely of old folk songs set to blues arrangements, the album is full of lyrical curiosities and historical elements. In Buddy Bolden Blues, we get a delightful historical and sociological nugget about how New Orleans managed to keep its jails “relatively unpopulated” back in the day:

In the early days down in New Orleans,
They’d take up a guy and…
Can’t have pistol without a permit,
Now they put him in jail…
Fine him about 10 dollars now
And If he couldn’t pay that fine
Well they give me him a broom
They tell him “go out and sweep up the French market”
Well he’d get out there
And there’d be nobody around
And he’d take that old broom and
He’d lay it down and walk away.
Kept the jails relatively unpopulated in those days in New Orleans.

From that point on, the only way for the album is up. Eric Von Schmidt’s tortured vocals elevate the melancholy tunes like Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out and Make Me A Pallet, but he saves his star performance for Frankie And Albert, which is without a doubt the best recording of this classic folk-blues tune.

It is impossible to overstate how big of a compliment this is, considering all the blues heavyweights that have cut their own versions of this story. Heavily based on Lead Belly’s version, the energy which Von Schmidt’s vocal performance injects into this song takes it to another level. As a listener, it is impossible not to be jolted out of your seat and walk into Frankie’s shoes as she makes her way to the saloon, and see the events unfold through her eyes. With the short narrative lines delivered every now and then, Von Schmidt assumes the role of the storyteller, but it is painfully evident that he too is taken up by the magic of his own song and is, in turns, both Frankie and Albert.

The second half of the album in general is flawless. 2:19 Blues stands out for the guitar rhythm that drives the train away from the plaintive singer. Wasn’t That A Mighty Storm is a song about a devastating hurricane that hit Texas in 1900, killing around 8000 people. Eric Von Schmidt discovered the lyrics for this song in a Library of Congress collection of old folk tunes and made a new musical arrangement of it which caught on with other folk musicians. Rolf Cahn wraps things up with an inspired performance of He Was A Friend Of Mine and the duo goes their separate ways, never to record together again.

7. Big Bill Broonzy — The Big Bill Broonzy Story

Recorded: 1957

Released: 1960 (CM Angel (A91))

A real trip through the history of the blues with one of its greatest lieutenants serving as a guide. This album follows a unique format, alternating between a song performed by Big Bill and a dialogue between him and the produced Bill Randle, where they talk about the song, the influences, and the blues more generally.

In the dialogue tracks, Big Bill lightly picks his guitar while reminiscing about his uncle who taught him how to play the banjo, the old days, church songs, the negro reels, other bluesmen, and so, so many other subjects. Just as the music is excellent in performative qualities, the dialogue tracks are replete with wisdom, insight, philosophy, history, past, future. It would be impractical for me to list all the bits of dialogue that contain something remarkable. Instead, here are some of the ones that most stick in the mind. With the certainty of a prophet, he remarks on one of the dialogue tracks when asked about why people no longer seem interested in the blues:

They don’t want to go back into the past, they want to go into the future. Well, I came from the past. I’m just the same way as I always was. They’ll come back down to this. But it may be in a different form, but it will be the same thing that I am doing now. They’ll come back.

And they did. Only a few years after these recordings, white audiences would get the blues bug and start searching for old performers, recording the sounds that will fully blossom into the folk revival of the ’60s. Too bad Big Bill was no longer around to see his prophecy come true.

A few more. On how to write the blues:

Of course, you can take anything and write blues about it, you can take a chair, a box, an axe, anything, a knife, anything and start writing the blues from it because you can think of the different things you can do with it. Take a knife… you could maybe skin a fish, cut a chicken’s throat, trim your toenails, fingernails… and you could kill somebody with it too, you know? By the time you think of all the things you could do with a knife you’ve got the blues. It don’t take but five verses to make the blues. Make up five things you could do with something and that’s it. Think of five things a woman done to you and you got the blues.

And of course:

A lot of people got the blues and don’t know it.

This is all despite Randle not doing a particularly good job of engaging Big Bill in dialogue. Having Big Bill in your recording studio and asking him about New Orleans jazz is like inviting Jesus Christ and talking to him about Islam. Of course the connection is there, and he will give you an authoritative opinion, but it is not the best use of his time.

In Randle’s defense, I am not sure if anyone else would have done a great job at engaging Big Bill Broonzy in a conversation about the blues considering the immense lived experience and encyclopedic knowledge that he has. Perhaps the best way to handle the situation is to just let Big Bill speak which, to Randle’s credit, he often does, and many of the dialogues are actually monologues.

The record was released in a 3xCD set, each CD running for about an hour and change, but on the whole it feels like three minutes—such is the engagement the content creates. In fact, some descriptions of this album state that the complete recordings ran for over 10 hours. We can only hope that some noble soul will stumble upon the archives at some point and release the complete recordings into the world.

6. Son House — The Original Delta Blues

Recorded: 1965

Release: 1998 (Columbia/Legacy)

The earthiest of the delta blues. Gravel, dust, oppressive heat, tents, levee camps, muleskinners, callers, mansnatchers. This album takes you there.

The syncopated guitar on Death Letter is among the most memorable instrumentation in all of the blues. The story of the song is almost too painful to listen to. Martin Scorsese’s excellent documentary on the blues features an old recording of Son House speaking about what makes the blues:

Blues is not a plaything like people think. Youngsters today take anything and make the blues out of. Just any little jump thing they say “this is such and such a blues”. No it’s not! Ain’t but one kind of blues and that consists between male and female that’s in love. Two people supposed to be in love when one or the other deceives the other through their love. Sometimes that kind of blues will make you even kill one another or do anything. It goes here, on this side [puts hand on the left side of his chest]. That’s where the blues started. It ain’t on this side, it’s over here. That’s the blues.

Notice the sharp difference between this and Big Bill Broonzy’s treatment of the same topic quoted in the previous entry. Taking this album as evidence, Son House knew what he was talking about. The specific flavor of pain that he describes infuses every note of Death Letter and Pearline.

Despite being a guitar virtuoso, Son House shows that he doesn’t need a guitar or, as a matter of fact, anything other than himself. The whole rhythm section on Grinnin’ in Your Face is him clapping his hands. His voice is the only melody line. Does it work? Not only does it work, it’s one of the best songs on the album.

All in all, The Original Delta Blues is an excellent collection of Son House’s recordings after his “rediscovery” in the ’60s. For more, the listener can always turn to Father Of The Delta Blues: The Complete 1965 Sessions, which includes a second CD with some alternate takes and some other curiosities.

5. Jimmie Rodgers — RCA Country Legends

Recorded: 1928–1933

Released: 2002 (BMG Heritage)

This is somewhat of a wildcard inclusion, but it should not be. Jimmie Rodgers, known during his life as “the blue yodeler”, recorded tracks such as “Mississippi Delta Blues”, “Mule Skinner Blues”, “Jimmie’s Mean Mama Blues”, and a score of “blue yodels”. Thematically, we see all of the classic themes—cheating mamas, missing home, going up the road, powerlessness against the injustices of life, and so on. Musically, we have the typical blues structures—12 bar blues, call-and-response, pentatonic scales, syncopated guitar rhythms, repeated lines with a rhymed third. Yet, despite all of that, Jimmie Rodgers is almost never considered as a bluesman and never gets mentioned in conversations about the blues. Why?

As best as I can tell, there are two reasons for this. The primary one is his legacy. Rodgers had an immeasurable impact on subsequent country music, mostly through people like Ernest Tubb, who became famous for using late Jimmy’s guitar, among other things. Inspired, without a doubt, by Jimmy’s music, Ernest Tubb nevertheless did not sing the blues. In this way, the “blue yodeler” became better known posthumously as “the father of country music”. In a racially segregated America, country and blues did not converse freely, so once Jimmy became a country legend, it was difficult to remember his blues.

Which brings me to the second point why I think he is not considered as a blues artist—Jimmy Rodgers was a white man in a time where blues music was exclusively seen as a black man’s endeavour. In fact, of all the hundreds of blues albums that I have listened, I cannot think of another white man who was singing the blues in the prewar period. Could this be, in part, why the blues heritage of Jimmy Rodgers was substituted for a country heritage? Frankly, I don’t know. Nobody seems to have treated the subject directly. Blues fans for the most part ignore Jimmy Rodgers, and country fans rarely speak about his contributions to the blues. This is reflected in the title of this compilation album—country legends.

In any case, when compiling a list of the best blues albums, neither of those reasons seem to me to be relevant. Jimmy’s recordings are sublime and they are most certainly the blues. Looking back from a time in which the racial segregation of musical genres amuses when it does not disgust, we can see the common share of troubles that poor whites and poor blacks had. Consider the following from Train Whistle Blues:

I got the blues so bad ’till the whole round world looks blue,
I got the blues so bad ’till the whole round world looks blue,
I ain’t got a dime, I don’t know what to do.

It might as well be a textbook example of a blues song snippet. Where Jimmy really shines though is in his blues about mean mamas. From Blue Yodel (T for Texas), which is one of the best songs in his catalog:

I’m gonna buy me a pistol, just as long as I’m tall
I’m gonna buy me a pistol, just as long as I’m tall
I’m gonna shoot poor Thelma, just to see her jump and fall.

Some of the cuts from his last recording session in 1933 are included as well, when he was overcome by tuberculosis to the point where he had to take breaks between each song. This is painfully obvious in the last track of the album, Jimmie Rodgers’ Last Blue Yodel, where he sounds almost completely depleted, but continues to sing about the things that matter to him most.

On the whole, this is a solid selection of Jimmie’s best work, including most of the best songs about the main themes in his work, missing home, women, and the blue life. A good introduction to the blue yodeler and a legend of the blues—Jimmie Rodgers.

4. B.B. King — Live in Cook County Jail

Recorded: 1970

Released: 1971 (ABC Records)

B.B. King does not mess around with his live prison albums. Almost too impatient to wait for the introduction to finish, the king and his band explode into an extremely energetic version of Everyday I Have the Blues. A song which usually runs for about 3 minutes is here completed in 1:43.

A round of applause from the crowd, but this is just the beginning. Things really kick into gear from the famous lines on How Blue Can You Get:

I gave you a brand new Ford
But you said “I want a Cadillac”.
I bought you a ten dollar dinner
You said “Thanks for the snack”.
I let you live in my penthouse
You said it was just a shack.
I gave you seven children
And now you wanna give ’em back.

With this, B.B. King has the crowd completely enchanted. From that point on, he is the master puppeteer who is in complete control, of his playing, of his band, of the crowd. He tests his powers in a dialogue with the crowd in Worry, Worry, Worry. The results are outstanding—he is able to make everyone follow him unconsciously, able to make any given person say what B.B. King wants him to say.

He uses that power to elevate the whole performance to a supernatural level. Little by little, track by track, the levels rise, way beyond the point of what natural music is capable of. This culminates in The Thrill Is Gone, where the king takes things to such an altitude that the people in the crowd must have felt short of breath.

Like a true professional, he uses the last track to gently bring everyone back down to the surface and to put some solid ground under their feet. A perfect artistic performance from a blues spell-weaver which he himself could not equal in the next 50 years of his career, and we can be sure that nobody else ever will.

Typically, the discussion around B.B. King is whether Live at the Regal or Live in Cook Country Jail is his best record. They are very similar, and while the Regal probably maintains a more consistently high level throughout, Cook County reaches a higher peak, which would be my preference and the reason why I have preferred it for this entry.

3. Mississippi John Hurt — 1928 Sessions

Recorded: 1928

Released: 1979 (Yazoo)

A truly unique character, Mississippi John Hurt’s music radiates the good nature and the kindness which made him beloved by all of his peers and which continues to be the thing that is most often associated with him. This album compiles his best cuts from the 1928 OKeh recordings, which have thankfully been much better preserved compared to some other records from that period.

Whether he is singing about hometown, praying to the Lord, or shooting his woman down, John Hurt maintains the same disarming honey-sweetness quality that makes you think that there is nothing wrong with the world and that there never was. Even though I have put this album as the third best blues album, this is the one I would take with me to a desert island if I could only take one.

My personal favorites are the narrative songs (Stack O’Lee Blues, Frankie, Spike Driver Blues) because they evoke memories from an alternate life where Mississippi John Hurt is the world’s officially appointed storyteller and interpreter. In those songs, again, we hear the endearing simplicity revealed in the world which to another person’s eyes might seem awfully complicated.

The impact that these recordings have had on all music, not just the blues, is impossible to overstate. They seem to have been revered by everyone who has ever touched them. A nice encapsulation of the attitude that other musicians had is preserved in Doc Watson’s John Hurt, which I always like to listen after a Mississippi John Hurt album.

2. Skip James — The Complete 1931 Sessions

Recorded: 1931

Released: 1990 (Black Swan)

All blues stories begin with Skip James. Take any book, watch any movie, speak to anyone interested in the genre, and chances are that they are going to begin with a young black man from Bentonia, Mississippi who travelled to Wisconsin for two recording sessions in 1931. Following the iterative nature of the blues and oral traditions more generally, most artists recorded songs that they had heard while growing up, whether that was in the church, on the street, or in the work camps. Not Skip James. That is not to say that he did not rely on previous material, but he infused it with an uncommon level of originality.

Projecting his eerie falsetto voice, which seems to have been specifically designed for singing the blues, and accompanying himself with either a 12-string guitar or, on some of the sides, a piano, Skip delivers a truly inspired performance, and it would take the rest of the world some 30-odd years to appreciate the genius of it. It is disturbing to think that these recordings were not very far from being lost completely (for one of the songs, Illinois Blues, there was only one surviving copy ever found). Thankfully, they survived, and starting from the ’60s have been re-released on dozens of labels.

These sessions have achieved somewhat of a legendary status and seem oddly impermeable to the passage of time. The voice of Skip James seems to speak directly, circumventing the veil of temporality, and, side by side, seem to reconstruct the man himself. Skip James appears through them as the avatar of the blues, an earthly manifestation of the genre itself. It is impossible to describe this process to somebody who has not listened to these recordings, just as it is impossible for somebody who has listened to them to miss it, as most reviews touch on some aspects of their magical pull.

In terms of individual songs, Devil Got My Woman, I’m So Glad, Cherry Ball Blues, Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues, 22-20 Blues, Illinois Blues, and Cypress Grove Blues are the stand-outs for me (fully aware that I listed half the album). Speaking more generally, beyond their influence on music, these recordings reach one of the high points in art itself, when, for whatever reason, an artist manages to deliver something that nobody expected and few recognized at the time.

1. Robert Johnson — King of the Delta Blues Singers

Recorded: 1936–1937

Released: 1961 (Columbia)

There can only be one name at the summit of the blues and very few would argue that it shouldn’t be Robert Johnson. He is the mythical figure of the genre, the one shrouded in mystery and rumors, the one in which the legends cannot be cleanly separated from the man. Most importantly, equipped only with his guitar, he is the one who recorded the best music that the genre has ever heard.

The guitar-playing on these recordings is sensational. Some have noted that the bass lines that seem to live under the main rhythm make the recordings sound as if there are two people playing the guitar. Knowing some of the legends that swirl around Robert Johnson’s name, it is not difficult to guess who that other “person” might be. If, as the legend has it, Robert Johnson really did sell his soul to the Devil on that night at the crossroad of Highway 61 and Highway 49, one is almost tempted to say that it was a good deal.

It only takes a few tracks into King of the Delta Blues Singers for the listener to realize that, if Skip James was the avatar of the blues on Earth, Robert Johnson is completely untethered from this world altogether. While other bluesmen were singing about cheating women, hard times, gambling, and traveling, Robert Johnson was singing about walking with the Devil, having possession over Judgement Day, and hell-hounds on his trail. Combine that with his crisp and clear vocals that come through as more than real even in the damaged recordings, and you realize that Robert Johnson is not a man at all, he is just a spirit that is come upon this Earth to sing the blues, captured in old acetate discs in 1937.

Charley Patton announced the upcoming apocalypse in his songs as somebody deeply perturbed and alarmed by what was happening; Robert Johnson sings of the same thing calmly, as the one who organized the event.

You better come on, in my kitchen,
For it’s going to be raining outdoors.

Naturally, he shows little concern for his earthly form:

You may bury my body, down by the highway side,
You may bury my body, down by the highway side,
(Baby I don’t care where you bury me after I’m dead and gone),
So my old evil spirit can catch the greyhound bus and ride.

Of course, even otherworldly apparitions, if they linger on this Earth for long enough, will eventually run into problems with women. Owing to this, we get numbers like 32-20 Blues and Kindhearted Woman Blues to which we can at least relate on some level.

The cover art for the album is perfectly suited to the music as well. We see a black man who is holding a guitar, but who is otherwise completely featureless. He is dressed in plain field clothes, standing on what might be the scorched earth of a Mississippi field, but then again could just as well be the surface of Mars. There is nothing else to indicate any identifiable time or place. This is how the music on these recordings feels as well—bare, isolated, alien in some imperceptible way, but, for all of that, wonderful and deeply, thoroughly enjoyable.