Over the last year I have been enjoying the blues more and more and I would love to hear some opinions on some essential blues albums, songs and artists. I've listened to lots of BB King, Buddy Guy and Clapton recently but I would love to branch out further.

B.B. King Live at the Regal. A classic.
Laurie Morvan band, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Albert Cummings.
Claude.

try some Huburt Sumlin and Robert Cray

Heres a few of my favorites

Albert Collins, Ice Pickin'
Elmore James, King of the Slide Guitar
T-Bone Walker, Low-Down Blues
Buddy Guy, Buddys Baddest
John Mayhall with Eric Clapton, Blues Breakers
Johnny Winter, JohnnyWinter

The list goes on. Good luck building your collection

Bill

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Hey, Boy Blue is back!

Hoeycow what you really need to do is go down to Whyte Avenue and go to 'Blues on Whyte' in the Commercial Hotel. it's been a decade since i lived in Edmonton, so i can't remember exactly what street it's on, like 101 or so.

One of the best blues bars ever.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

The Smithsonian productions historic post World War II Blues music compilation is a great set of blues with a wealth of Grammy nominated album notes about the artists that recorded and/or wrote the music.

If you study this set, you will walk away with a great insight of the genre.
Not to mention, you will really dig the variety of music on the compilation.

CB, what is the album title...I was just on the Smithsonian website and couldn't find it

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Here's a few names you can check out

Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters
Rod Piazza
Tab Benoit
John Primer
Enrico Crivellaro

Also check out Downchild blues band, and the Powder Blues. 2 of Canada's better groups.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

I think when The Smithsonian productions ran out they stopped producing it. Though I have seen it on Amazon and some other sites.

Mean Old World: The Blues from 1940 to 1994

I did just see a good deal ranging from 19.99 to 40.97 on used and new sets on Amazon. It is not an easy find. But it is worth the search. What a great historical set, hence the Smithsonian production.

Stevie Ray Vaughan - "Texas Flood" is the classic, and "In Step" is arguably the best
Any Jimmy Reed album
Johnny Copeland - "Texas Twister" (SRV plays on one of the tracks)
There's also an album out of Albert Collins, Robert Cray and Johnny Copeland called "Showdown" that's really, really good.
Albert King - "King of Blues Guitar"
Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan - "In Session", it's the only recording of them playing together. It's basically just a jam, but as you can imagine it's an amazing one.
Anything by the Allman Brothers, The Animals, as you can probably tell I started scrolling down with my iPod which is why there were so many A's just now...
Bobby "Blue" Bland - "Two Steps from the Blues" if you like Soul Blues
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - "The Original Peacock Recordings" which was recorded right here in Houston
Elmore James - "The Sky is Crying" for some slide
Freddie King - "Let's Hide Away and Dance Away" SRV and his brother stole every lick of every song of this album
Anything from Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters. (Also look into Willie Dixon.)
You should listen to Jeff Healey if you haven't already, and Jimmie Vaughan.
Anything from John Lee Hooker...
If you can, try to track down the original version of Texas Flood by Larry Davis, it's really cool to hear that.
Leadbelly... Lightnin' Hopkins... Lonnie Johnson... Mance Lipscomb... Robert Johnson...
Paul Butterfield Blues Band - "East-West"


Sorry, that was sort of a mess. Just random selections from my iPod.

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get a listen to some rory gallagher the live in europe album is a good place to start

ry cooder espesh his early stuff , he also done the soundtrack for a film called crossroads , it had steve via in it , worth checking out

fleetwood mac the early stuff again with peter green playing the guitar

as well as the stuff already mentioned hth

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Ace Of Harps- Charlie Musselwhite

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Albert Collins is a favourite blues guitarist of mine, and someone who hasn't been mentioned by anyone else yet.

I would say so far you've been given a good list, and I would suggest if you want to build up a good library of varied artists and their best material, look for "best of" and multi-artist compilations to start, this will help build your library quickly, and after you've gotten a decent collection, you can start (if you haven't already) getting particular albums for particular artists you really like. This is what I'm doing for the moment, as I really have not got a whole lot of any kind of albums, I've only recently "restarted" my collection. Not more than 6-8 months ago I had just two CD's that I've had for over ten years. I've got now about a dozen and a half CD's (mostly "best of"and multi-artist collections, as I suggested) and more on the way. This month I think I may get the "Complete Recordings of Robert Johnson".
Addendum: Check out the "Crucial Blues" multi-artist compilation series, its a good place to start.