Paul's Top "10"

This list is a work in progress. I have way too many favorite albums to just select 10. These are the ones I?m sure of thus far. I?ll be adding more to the list from time to time. Any suggestions or comments are most welcome.

POSTWAR/ELECTRIC

1. West Side Soul - Magic Sam
To me, the blues is about singing; great singing, with an almost religious instensity, boundless and passionate. The guitar playing should be equally expressive and individual with a distinctive tone and enough technique to tell its own story. Nowhere are these elements in such abundance as on West Side Soul. I love this record as much today as I did the first time I ever heard it which is too long ago to remember. Favorites : No favorites, I like the whole thing.

2. Hate to See you Go - Little Walter
The burning genius of Chicago blues at his best. Innovative, soulful harmonica virtuoso Walter Jacobs was musically head and shoulders above most of his contemporaries. In guitarist Robert Jr. Lockwood he found a soul mate who effortlessly laid down one perfect accompaniment after another on these Chess recordings, adding exactly the right highlights to Walter?s playing and singing. This collection contains ?Roller Coaster? which is an amazing exhibition of what a true musical genius can do with one chord and the right rhythm. Equally mind-boggling is the solo in Blue and Lonesome and the atmosphere it instantly creates in the listener.

3. Don't Answer the Door - B.B. King
Don?t Answer the Door was recorded in a small club outside Chicago, catches B.B. in a more down-home atmosphere. He is with his people and they're with him. His playing and singing are fantastic. His band is an organ trio with a few horns, and is much more intimate than the much-heralded Live at the Regal. Favorites are Gambler?s Blues, Night Life, and the title song.

4. Otis Rush ? Cobra Sessions 1956-1958
Otis Rush?s emotionally drenched performances of mostly Willie Dixon songs (who also produced the recording session) are highlighted by his soaring vocals and incendiary guitar playing. Rush?s backup band includes a few ringers like Little Walter, Ike Turner and Lafayette Leake. The poor recording quality, bottomless reverb and other recording effects lend a 1950?s ?flying saucer? sound, as though it had been recorded in outer space. Oddly, it has the same effect on me as some of the prewar recordings of the country blues artists, a sort of ghostlike quality? I like it. Great songs on this album include Jump Sister Bessie, My Love Will Never Die, She?s A Good ?un, and Double Trouble.

5. Junior's Blues - Junior Parker
I read about Junior Parker on the back of other peoples? records before I actually heard his recordings myself. His singing is intimate; his phrasing has a swinging quality to it while still being very bluesy. On this collection, he covers a lot of blues standards, including That?s All Right, Look Over Yonder?s Wall, The Things I Used to Do, and Next Time You See Me. The thing that makes this record is the unbelievably great horn arrangements. All of the musicians in his backup band are killers, especially the guitar players.

PREWAR/ACOUSTIC

1. Blind Lemon Jefferson - volume 2 and 3, Document Records
There are 4 CDs in the Blind Lemon Jefferson Document Series. All four of them are great, but volumes 2 and 3 stand out in my mind as being particularly good. The Document records always put in chronological order, which makes it a lot easier to figure out what he's doing with his guitar tunings. Volume 2 has three recordings of Matchbox Blues. It is fascinating to listen to him play the same song on three different occasions. Even within a relatively confining structure Lemon is able to sound spontaneous. This has a lot to do with where he accents the beats and how he relates his singing to his guitar playing, often playing and singing two divergent and seemingly incongruous musical lines together. His playing and singing are unimaginable to one who hasn't heard them. His later recordings reveal much greater detail and care in his lyric writing. Some are surprising, for example, Crawling Baby Blues and Fence Breakin' Yellin' Blues

2. I Was Born to Preach the Gospel - Washington Phillips
There is no other recording that stands out as much in my mind - of all the prewar blues recordings I've heard - as this one. Washington Phillips was an itinerant Baptist Preacher who recorded 22 sides in Dallas in 1926-7? for the Decca label. On his recordings he plays a mysterious, ethereal-sounding instrument identified as a Dolceola or a Celestaphone. The sound of this instrument underscores the touchingly guileless personality of Mr. Phillips, who sings his gospel songs with an eternal faith.