Essential Delta Blues

Description

Looking at the history and development of popular music in the twentieth century, the blues holds a particularly influential place as it was to become the key root of so many other musical forms. Delta Blues was a variant of Country Blues. It was based in the Mississippi Delta, which was a specific area of North West Mississippi, running some 200 miles south from Memphis. Its land was very fertile, but for most of its working population it remained an impoverished area, and singing the blues became one of the very few ways that musicians could earn a few extra dollars away from the fields.

Tracklisting

Disc 1
1. Baby Please Don’t Go – Big Joe Williams
2. I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom – Robert Johnson
3. Frankie – Mississippi John Hurt
4. Special Rider Blues – Son House
5. Crawlin’ King Snake – Tony Hollins
6. Black Spider Blues – Robert Lockwood Jr.
7. Mississippi River Blues – Big Bill Broonzy
8. Highway No. 51 – Tommy McClennan
9. Fixin’ to Die – Bukka White
10. Landing Blues – John Lee Hooker
11. Stomp Down Rider – Blind Willie McTell
12. Banana in Your Fruit Basket – Bo Carter
13. Nobody’s Fault But Mine – Blind Willie Johnson
14. Catfish Blues – Robert Petway
15. 34 Blues – Charley Patton
16. Bottle It Up and Go – Tommy McClennan
17. Devil Got My Woman – Skip James
18. Dirty Mistreater – Willie ‘Poor Boy’ Lofton