VA - Low Blows: An Anthology Of Chicago Harmonica Blues

Size: 122,9 MB
Time: 53:05
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 1994
Styles: Chicago Blues, Harmonica Blues
Art: Full

01. Big Guitar Red & Good Rockin' Charles - Found My Baby (Gone) (3:14)
02. Big Leon Brooks - Kicking Up Dust (3:18)
03. Mojo Buford - Don't Go No Farther (4:08)
04. Easy Baby - Good Morning Mr. Blues (5:20)
05. Good Rockin' Charles - She Loves Another Man (3:13)
06. Big Leon Brooks - Pink Champagne (4:11)
07. Joe Carter & Big John Wrencher - Take A Little Walk With Me (2:37)
08. Golden Wheeler - Good Lover (3:41)
09. Big Walter Horton & Carey Bell - Avenue Stomp (2:59)
10. Good Rockin' Charles - Ground Hog Blues (3:40)
11. Golden Wheeler - Evil Woman (3:37)
12. Big Leon Brooks - You Know (3:37)
13. Good Rockin' Charles - I Got To Go (3:23)
14. Good Rockin' Charles - Good Rockin' (2:02)
15. Joe Carter & Big John Wrencher - Honey Bee (4:00)

Low Blows

---

Various - The Finest Southern Blues

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 85:30
Size: 195.7 MB
Styles: Southern blues
Year: 2016
Art: Front

[2:44] 1. Charlie Musselwhite - Taylor, Arkansas
[3:23] 2. Johnny Shines - If I Get Lucky
[4:21] 3. Big Leon Brooks - Country Boy
[3:19] 4. Clarence Gatemouth Brown - Louisiana Zydeco
[2:44] 5. Willie Nix - Seems Like A Million Years
[5:52] 6. W.C. Clark - Tip Of My Tongue
[9:31] 7. Tinsley Ellis - Time To Quit
[3:21] 8. Phillip Walker - Roll, Roll, Roll
[6:28] 9. Johnny Copeland - Blackjack
[3:49] 10. William Clarke - Lollipop Mama
[7:13] 11. Big Mama Thornton - Ball 'n' Chain
[2:54] 12. The Song Trust - Dawg Tired
[2:37] 13. Carey Bell - That Ain't It
[2:36] 14. Bobby Lee Trammell - Come On And Love Me
[3:55] 15. C.J. Chenier & The Red Hot Louisiana Band - Louisiana Down Home Blues
[2:09] 16. Willie Johnson Combo - So Long Baby Goodbye
[3:40] 17. Andrew Brown - Morning, Noon And Night
[4:34] 18. Carey & Lurrie Bell - Five Long Years
[6:29] 19. Hound Dog Taylor - Phillips' Theme
[3:42] 20. Rev. Gary Davis - I Won't Be Back No More

When you think of the blues, you think about misfortune, betrayal and regret. You lose your job, you get the blues. Your mate falls out of love with you, you get the blues. Your dog dies, you get the blues. While blues lyrics often deal with personal adversity, the music itself goes far beyond self-pity. The blues is also about overcoming hard luck, saying what you feel, ridding yourself of frustration, letting your hair down, and simply having fun. The best blues is visceral, cathartic, and starkly emotional. From unbridled joy to deep sadness, no form of music communicates more genuine emotion.

The blues has deep roots in American history, particularly African-American history. The blues originated on Southern plantations in the 19th Century. Its inventors were slaves, ex-slaves and the descendants of slaves—African-American sharecroppers who sang as they toiled in the cotton and vegetable fields. It's generally accepted that the music evolved from African spirituals, African chants, work songs, field hollers, rural fife and drum music, revivalist hymns, and country dance music. The blues grew up in the Mississippi Delta just upriver from New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. Blues and jazz have always influenced each other, and they still interact in countless ways today. Unlike jazz, the blues didn't spread out significantly from the South to the Midwest until the 1930s and '40s. Once the Delta blues made their way up the Mississippi to urban areas, the music evolved into electrified Chicago blues, other regional blues styles, and various jazz-blues hybrids. A decade or so later the blues gave birth to rhythm 'n blues and rock 'n roll. ~Ed Kopp

The Finest Southern Blues

---

Various - Earwig 16th Anniversary Sampler

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 69:36
Size: 159.3 MB
Styles: Assorted styles
Year: 1995/2005
Art: Front

[2:16] 1. Frank Frost - Jelly Rolly King
[4:35] 2. Arthur Lee Stephenson - Lightnin' Struck The Poor House
[3:25] 3. J.W. Brewer - Hair Like A Horse's Mane
[3:51] 4. Jack Johnson - Oil Man
[3:32] 5. Albert Luandrew - Be Careful How You Vote
[2:56] 6. Eurreal Montgomery - I'm Gonna Build My Bed On The Bottom Of The Deep Blue Sea
[4:29] 7. Louis Myers - Bottom Of The Harp
[4:56] 8. Jimmy Dawkins - Wes Cide Bluze
[3:17] 9. David Honeyboy Edwards - Eyes Full Of Tears
[4:24] 10. Lessie Davenport - When The Blues Hit You
[5:24] 11. Alfonzo Primer, James Son Thomas - Cairo
[3:59] 12. Robert P. Ferguson - Shake Your Apple Tree
[6:49] 13. Aron Burton - Past, Present And Future
[2:28] 14. Eddie Lee Watson - Stick Candy
[3:21] 15. William Henderson - Better Know What You Runnin' From
[2:35] 16. Willie Anderson - Come Here Mama
[3:35] 17. Leon Brooks - Young Girl
[3:35] 18. Iverson Minter - Sittin' Here Wonderin'

Earwig was founded in 1979 by Michael Robert Frank, and it quickly become one of the top blues labels, recording artists based on the quality of their music rather than on sales potential. To celebrate Earwig's 16th anniversary, this 18-song collection of music from the label's catalog was put out in 1995. There is impressive variety on the single CD, with the settings ranging from Little Brother Montgomery's solo piano to rockish blues groups and everything in between. The selections were well chosen, and although sticking to the blues (no Motown, R&B, or soul music here), the disc shows the wide variety of music that appeared in the 1980s and '90s in the blues world. Overall, this CD gives one an excellent overview of some of the treasures in the Earwig catalog. ~Scott Yanow

Earwig 16th Anniversary Sampler mc
Earwig 16th Anniversary Sampler zippy

---

VA - Rare Harmonica Blues

Size: 159,5 MB
Time: 67:44
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2013
Styles: Harmonica Blues
Art: Front

01 Coy Love - Harmonica Jam (2:43)
02 Buddy Guy & Junior Wells - High Heel Sneakers (4:56)
03 Sonny Terry - Burnt Child (3:43)
04 Harmonica Frank - Rockin Chair Blues (3:03)
05 Big Mama Thornton - Rock Me Baby (6:53)
06 Big Leon Brooks - Country Boy (4:21)
07 Joe Hill Louis - Boogie In The Park (2:44)
08 Charlie Musselwhite - Cha Cha The Blues (3:08)
09 Lazy Lester - Patrol Wagon Blues (4:46)
10 Raful Neal - Honest I Do (2:58)
11 Billy Boy Arnold - Shake Your Hips (3:25)
12 Dr. Ross - Juke Box Boogie (2:31)
13 Carey & Lurrie Bell - Got To Leave Chi-Town (3:42)
14 The Jimmy Cotton Blues Quartet - Love Me Or Leave (3:30)
15 Jimmy & Walter - Easy (2:59)
16 Sons Of The Blues - Prisoner Of The Blues (4:12)
17 William Clarke - A Good Girl Is Hard To Find (5:09)
18 Howlin' Wolf - Well That's Alright (2:55)

Rare Harmonica Blues

---

Various - Alligator Records Playlists: Prison Songs

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 34:02
Size: 77.9 MB
Styles: Assorted blues
Year: 2013
Art: Front

[4:51] 1. Gaye Adegbalola - Jail House Blues
[4:54] 2. Billy Boy Arnold - Prisoner's Plea
[3:03] 3. Big Leon Brooks - Thirteen Years In Prison
[5:09] 4. Lonnie Mack - Cincinnati Jail
[4:47] 5. The Kinsey Report - Down In The Dungeon
[4:17] 6. The Holmes Brothers - Three Gray Walls
[3:36] 7. Charlie Musselwhite - Cook County Blues
[3:23] 8. Clarence Gatemouth Brown - My Own Prison

Songs of prison and captivity shaped what we have come to know as the blues. Angela Davis suggests that imprisonment was a central theme in blues music. This is borne out over and over. One of my favorite musicians, the great John Lee Hooker (who Bonnie Rait re-introduced to the mainstream in the 1990s) recorded his version of Prison Bound in 1949. In the song, he tackles the important ideas of the separation from loved ones and the sense of abandonment that can come from being incarcerated.

When they had my trial, baby
You know you couldn’t be found
When they had my trial
Baby, you could not be found
But it’s too late to cry, baby
Your daddy’s prison bound

~Prison Industrial Complex

Alligator Records Playlists: Prison Songs mc
Alligator Records Playlists: Prison Songs zippy

---

Big Leon Brooks - Let's Go To Town

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 53:03
Size: 121.5 MB
Styles: Chicago blues
Year: 1983
Art: Front

[3:12] 1. Let's Go To Town
[4:34] 2. Tell Me Baby
[3:26] 3. Hurry Up Joe
[4:12] 4. You Hurt Me So
[4:18] 5. Love Me Baby
[4:09] 6. Sugar Mama
[3:48] 7. Miss Mary Ann
[3:38] 8. Young Girl
[4:09] 9. Please Mr. Catfish
[3:14] 10. Side Walk
[3:51] 11. Cryin' Over You
[8:03] 12. The Blues Today
[2:21] 13. Chromatic Stomp

Big Leon Brooks’ deep voice and heavy harmonica tone harkened back to Chicago blues of the 1950s—his style having been preserved by a long hiatus from music. He was influenced very little by the funkier, guitar-driven blues of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Leon was quick to point out that there were better harmonica players years ago. “We had quite a few harmonica players back then that were pretty damn good…. they had more weight, more tone. You got to really blow from within; you’ve got to have that feeling for music, blues music. This is something you don’t find many harp players with today.”

“The Big Man,” as he was aptly called around his home (he often wore shirts with “Big” embroidered on the pocket instead of his name), began playing harp when he was six years old. Growing up in Sunflower, Mississippi, he had a chance to learn from the masters. Leon recalled meeting Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller), Elmore James, Boyd Gilmore and Charlie Booker. “I was raised up around those guys,” he remembered, “but I really learned a lot from the radio, too.”

Moving to Chicago in the early 1940s, Leon began playing with “kids in the neighborhood, on the street and down in Jewtown” (the Maxwell Street outdoor market). There he met his future mentor, Little Walter Jacobs. “I started out in Rice Miller’s style, but Little Walter was really my idol on harmonica, and I followed him around a lot. He was my coach.”

Let's Go To Town mc
Let's Go To Town zippy

---

Various - Living Chicago Blues Vols 1-4

Every night in Chicago, the sounds of blues bands reverberate from narrow barrooms, basement taverns, and small, modest lounges throughout the city. At black neighborhood bars on the South and West Sides, decorated with Christmas tinsel, day-glo zodiac posters, handwritten signs on the walls; at the more publicized, fashionable nightspots on the North Side; or just at house parties out on the streets- the blues men and women of Chicago are singing, shouting, crying, laughing, celebrating. Songs of hard times, heartbreak, loneliness; songs to drive the blue feelings away, to rock the night and let the good times roll.

This is the living, continuing blues tradition of Chicago. Vibrant music with rich heritage of legendary names and classic songs from years gone by--but music not resigned to mere history. The blues still speaks to neighborhood crowds at clubs like Theresa’s, Florence’s, The Checkerboard, Pepper’s, Porter’s, Queen Bee’s and Morris Brown’s on the South Side, Eddie Shaw’s New 1815 Club, Ma Bea’s, The Majestic, The Golden Slipper, and The Poinciana on the West Side. And in recent years blues has drawn white audiences to popular North Side clubs: The Wise Fools Pub, Elsewhere, Kingston Mines, Biddy Milligan’s and others. The North Side clientele and décor differ, and the atmosphere is not so loose as in the black taverns. But, black or white, the blues clubs are much the same size and offer fine entertainment at similar prices. The small bands echo the sounds of the 1950s and ‘60s, but they’ve updated the music, too, with new patterns, new rhythms. In an era of pervasive rock, soul and disco trends, blues has thrived in the Chicago bars.

On weekends, clubgoers can find live blues at 20 or 30 clubs. Hundreds of singers and instrumentalists appear in the blues joints every year, just as they have ever since the 1940s and ‘50s, when thousands of blacks were arriving in Chicago from Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana. Today, black Southern musicians no longer migrate to the city in such numbers, but a whole new generation of bluesmen has grown up in the urban streets. And on the North Side, young white performers from the suburbs, the East and Midwest have moved in to participate with the blues veterans, sharing bands as well as bandstands.

The blues men of the ‘70s, like their predecessors, are men who live the blues, and live for the blues. Many have to work in factories, steel mills, or garages to make ends meet when the local blues gigs pay a man only $15 or $20 a night. But the blues is more than a weekend hobby to these musicians. The wages may be low, but the quality of the music is undeniably high. Chicago tavern musicians have set standards which have influenced popular music the world over. They may be featured as singers and bandleaders one night, while on the next gig they might work as sidemen in another band. Even on their nights off they’re likely to show up at a blues club, where patrons are continually treated to spontaneous jams and unadvertised guest performances. The crowds in the black clubs are mostly working people from the neighborhood. Sometimes they’re still dressed in work clothes. But the cab driver at the next table might also be a blues singer just back from a tour from France; maybe the mechanic sitting at the bar will suddenly be up on stage, blowing a harmonica or rocking the house with a guitar boogie.

Actually, “on stage” is a misnomer when it comes to most blues clubs. Bands often simply stand in a corner, or sit on their amplifiers, just a few feet from the audience. If there is a bandstand, it’s probably tiny and cramped, with barely enough room for four or five musicians at a time. Dressing rooms and special lounging areas for the stars are almost unheard of. Bluesmen share drinks and conversation with friends and neighbors between –and during-sets. In the blues bars, it’s a 9 p.m.-to-2 (or 4) a.m. world of live musical excitement, good natured-banter, friendly crowds, musicians who always have time for their fans, and honest songs wrought with power and emotion. And usually, all it costs to hear some of the world’s great music is a dollar at the door, if admission is charged at all, and 75 cents or a dollar a beer.

Yet most bluesmen have played their blues in taverns, week after week, year after year, unknown to all but the local patrons. There was a period of commercial blues recording in the 1950s, when companies like Chess and VeeJay were turning out hit singles, and the R&B disc jockeys and promoters were pushing the blues artists. But even then, the great majority of Chicago’s bluesmen were never able to record with any regularity, if indeed they recorded at all.

Today the powerful recording conglomerates show little interest in blues, and most blues singers must depend on small, independent companies which operate from storefronts or producers’ homes. The occasional 45s are distributed to ghetto record shops, jukeboxes, and amateur DJs who shout and spin records in the corner taverns. With luck, or enough money, a record might get a little airplay on the radio. The few Chicago companies which issue blues albums deal mainly with a market of white fans, students and collectors. Success in this market can mean gigs in college towns, or European tours which are more grueling than glamorous. Labels such as Delmark, Arhoolie, Prestige/Bluesville, Testament, and Vanguard were instrumental in putting many major Chicago bluesmen on LP for the first time during the 60s. Alligator’s Living Chicago Blues series, in fact, owes its inspirations to a historic sent of Vanguard albums (Chicago/The Blues/Today!), produced by Sam Charters in 1965/66. The men Charters recorded--Otis Rush, Junior Wells, James Cotton, Homesick James, the late Otis Spann, and others--went on to win international recognition and record several albums apiece for other labels. But today, many other excellent artists remain unrecorded, or with a mere handful of obscure releases to their credit. From this deep pool of overlooked or undiscovered talent come the artists who appear on the Living Chicago Blues series.

When Charters produced and annotated Chicago/The Blues/Today! he wrote, “In Chicago, on the South Side, it’s still today for the blues.” More than a decade later, it is still today for the blues in Chicago. As it was yesterday, as it will be tomorrow. Living Chicago Blues.

Album: Living Chicago Blues Vol 1
Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 64:40
Size: 148.1 MB
Styles: Chicago blues
Year: 1978
Art: Front

[5:48] 1. Jimmy Johnson - Your Turn To Cry
[3:56] 2. Jimmy Johnson - Serves Me Right To Suffer Aka Memory Pain
[3:11] 3. Jimmy Johnson - Ain't That Just Like A Woman
[4:42] 4. Jimmy Johnson - Feel Like Breaking Up Someone's Home
[2:50] 5. Eddie Shaw - It's Alright
[3:18] 6. Eddie Shaw - Out Of Bad Luck
[3:59] 7. Eddie Shaw - Stoop Down, Baby
[3:40] 8. Eddie Shaw - Sittin' On Top Of The World
[3:27] 9. Eddie Shaw - My Baby's So Ugly
[4:00] 10. Left Hand Frank - Come Home, Darling
[2:29] 11. Left Hand Frank - Blues Won't Let Me Be
[4:28] 12. Left Hand Frank - One Room Country Shack
[4:10] 13. Left Hand Frank - Linda Lu
[2:39] 14. Carey Bell - Too Late
[4:29] 15. Carey Bell - Laundromat Blues
[2:48] 16. Carey Bell - One Day
[4:40] 17. Carey Bell - Woman In Trouble

Living Chicago Blues Vol 1 mc
Living Chicago Blues Vol 1 zippy

---

Album: Living Chicago Blues Vol 2
Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 65:05
Size: 149.0 MB
Styles: Chicago blues
Year: 1978
Art: Front

[4:13] 1. Lonnie Brooks - Don't Answer The Door
[3:26] 2. Lonnie Brooks - Two Headed Man
[4:42] 3. Lonnie Brooks - Cold, Lonely Nights
[4:11] 4. Lonnie Brooks - Move Over, Little Dog
[3:23] 5. Johnny 'Big Moose' Walker - Would You, Baby
[4:14] 6. Johnny 'Big Moose' Walker - Worry, Worry
[2:48] 7. Johnny 'Big Moose' Walker - Sunnyland Blues
[3:19] 8. Johnny 'Big Moose' Walker - Cry, Cry Darling
[4:23] 9. Magic Slim - Stranded On The Highway
[5:06] 10. Magic Slim - Dirty Mother For You
[4:19] 11. Magic Slim - Spider In My Stew
[3:41] 12. Magic Slim - Don't Say That No More
[3:28] 13. Pinetop Perkins - Take It Easy, Baby
[5:00] 14. Pinetop Perkins - Blues After Hours
[5:15] 15. Pinetop Perkins - Little Angel Child
[3:30] 16. Pinetop Perkins - How Much More Long

Living Chicago Blues Vol 2 mc
Living Chicago Blues Vol 2 zippy

---

Album: Living Chicago Blues Vol 3
Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 70:43
Size: 161.9 MB
Styles: Chicago blues
Year: 1980
Art: Front

[3:16] 1. A.C. Reed - Hard Times
[4:15] 2. A.C. Reed - She's Fine
[3:51] 3. A.C. Reed - Moving Out Of The Ghetto
[3:35] 4. A.C. Reed - Going To New York
[3:38] 5. Scotty & The Rib Tips - Big Leg Woman
[3:00] 6. Scotty & The Rib Tips - Careless With Our Love
[2:47] 7. Scotty & The Rib Tips - Road Block
[3:13] 8. Scotty & The Rib Tips - Poison Ivy
[2:45] 9. Lovie Lee - I Dare You
[5:15] 10. Lovie Lee - Nobody Knows My Troubles
[3:12] 11. Lovie Lee - Sweet Little Girl
[3:00] 12. Lovie Lee - Naptown
[4:37] 13. Lacy Gibson - Drown In My Own Tears
[2:46] 14. Lacy Gibson - Crying For My Baby
[3:51] 15. Lacy Gibson - Feel So Bad
[2:53] 16. Lacy Gibson - Wish Me Well
[6:06] 17. Sons Of The blues - Have You Ever Loved A Woman
[4:23] 18. Sons Of The blues - Berlin Wall
[4:11] 19. Sons Of The blues - Prisoner Of The Blues

Living Chicago Blues Vol 3 mc
Living Chicago Blues Vol 3 zippy

---

Album: Living Chicago Blues Vol 4
Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 69:28
Size: 159.0 MB
Styles: Chicago blues
Year: 1980
Art: Front

[4:02] 1. Detroit Junior - If I Hadn't Been High
[3:03] 2. Detroit Junior - Some Nerve
[5:19] 3. Detroit Junior - Somebody To Shack
[2:35] 4. Detroit Junior - I Got Money
[3:01] 5. Luther 'Guitar Junior' Johnson - Somebody Have Mercy
[3:17] 6. Luther 'Guitar Junior' Johnson - Got To Have Money
[3:01] 7. Luther 'Guitar Junior' Johnson - Just Like Mama Said
[3:48] 8. Luther 'Guitar Junior' Johnson - Look What You Done
[4:57] 9. Queen Sylvia Embry - Going Upstairs
[2:05] 10. Queen Sylvia Embry - Blues This Morning
[2:52] 11. Queen Sylvia Embry - Tired Of Being Pushed Around
[4:29] 12. Queen Sylvia Embry - Please Let Me Stay
[3:31] 13. Big Leon Brooks - Blues For A Real Man
[3:03] 14. Big Leon Brooks - Thirteen Years In Prison
[4:21] 15. Big Leon Brooks - Country Boy
[3:16] 16. Big Leon Brooks - My Life Ain't The Same
[4:58] 17. Andrew Brown - I Got News For You
[3:40] 18. Andrew Brown - Morning, Noon And Night
[4:00] 19. Andrew Brown - Two Years

Living Chicago Blues Vol 4 mc
Living Chicago Blues Vol 4 zippy

---

VA - Chicago Blues Nuggets

Size: 189,9 MB
Time: 81:45
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2013
Styles: Chicago Blues
Art: Front

01 Charlie Musselwhite - Casual Friend (3:26)
02 Albert Collins - Broke (4:08)
03 Billy Boy Arnold - Fine Young Girl (5:01)
04 Johnny 'Big Moose' Walker - Sunnyland Blues (2:49)
05 Hound Dog Taylor - 55th Street Boogie (3:04)
06 Fenton Robinson - Gotta Wake Up (4:24)
07 A.C. Reed - My Buddy Buddy Friends (3:14)
08 Eddy 'The Chief' Clearwater - Came Up The Hard Way (6:10)
09 Big Walter Horton - Trouble In Mind (4:37)
10 Son Seals - Mother-In-Law Blues (3:15)
11 William Clarke - Five Card Hand (3:31)
12 The Siegel-Schwall Band - Can't Stop (4:39)
13 Big Leon Brooks - My Life Ain't The Same (3:17)
14 Carey Bell - Bad Habits (4:48)
15 Eddie Shaw - Out Of Bad Luck (3:18)
16 Lonnie Brooks - A Little Rock And Roll And Some Country Blues (4:30)
17 Maurice John Vaughn - Eager Beaver (3:16)
18 Sons Of The Blues - Prisoner Of The Blues (4:12)
19 Lil Ed & The Blues Imperials - Blues For Jeanette (6:00)
20 Jimmy Johnson - Serves Me Right To Suffer Aka Memory Pain (3:56)

Chicago Blues Nuggets

---