Bar-B-Cue'n Blues, Another Classic Blues Anthology from Cat Bone

The classic blues recordings of the '50s and '60s speak to us today with directness. So much has come under the spell of this early electricity, yet to hear some of the originals carry their bare-wires jolt is to KNOW what the blues are about.

You get that in the Jukin' the Blues series volume Bar-B-Cue'n Blues (Catbone 2003-2). You get some classic but lesser known sides from Billy Boy Arnold, Howlin Wolf, James Cotton, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters and Little Richard. The final cut is an OK bebop single by Jack Millman and it is out of place. But it's less than three minutes in an otherwise sparkling one-two punch of electric blues. Hooker's "Sally Mae" is here again, as it was on a previous volume, and I can only assume that was a programming glitch.

But whoo, just listen to "Dirty Mother Furriers," "Louise," "So Glad I'm Livin," "Built for Comfort" and "I Feel So Good" and you don't have to explain anything. It is THERE.

So get there if you don't know this music! The rest of us are there at the bar-b-que joint, digging on it all, so join us.

Mean Street, An Anthology of Classical Blues in the "Jukin' with the Blues" Series

Mean Street (Catbone 2005-2) is an anthology of what Julius Hemphill was referring to in his "Hard Blues." Here's an anthology in the Catbone series, an anthology of hard, hard blues about some hard times. It has some of the best. Elmore James' "Dust My Broom," Howlin Wolf's "Killing Floor," Jimmy Reed's "Goin Upside Your Head," Etta James and "It Brings a Tear" (aka "Drown in My Own Tears"). This is the school of hard knocks, songs about people driven to the edge, beyond, sometimes, what is considered politically correct. You have big problems in your life, you look to the closest people to blame and it might be your mate. But they may have done you wrong too.

Here are 17 slabs of the blues truth, the hard truth, the hard blues. There are enough classics in this stack-o-sound that you might just be well served by grabbing it if you don't know how the hard blues could and can be. Hard times? Hard blues.