Hertz van Rental said:
I'm also partial to Leadbelly and Lightnin' Sam Hopkins.
Ooh! Some tasty country blues from Texas. Good stuff. Not trying to play Mr. Expert. I'm actually rather new to the blues compared to a lot of people. But after listening to a fair amount, I do notice a difference between the various styles. Some I really like, and some doesn't do much for me.
Back in the 70's I remember going to an allnight film show that was just archive films of Blues singers performing in a studio. The films had been made by an American foundation in the 30's and 40's. It was quite amazing to actually see these guys performing. Don't know if the films are still around.
That's really cool. I enjoy the music quite a bit, but being able to see the artists play adds a lot. I found
Deep Blues and
Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues A Musical Journey rather interesting and entertaining.
It was mainly Robert Johnson who inspired the Rolling Stones when they started out.
Yeah, I guess he was a big influence on a lot of artists. I think Eric Clapton has a whole album of Johnson covers. The Stones, U2 and others would also make pilgrimages to Junior Kimbrough's juke joint in Mississippi.
I have a boxed set of vinyl somewhere called 'Genesis - the birth of the Blues' with archive recordings. I'll dig it out and see what's on there.
I started out with a 4-CD box set that covered a lot of different artists. It was rather hit-or-miss for me. It showed me that "the blues" covered a lot of ground, and that I would have to do some digging to find what I was really looking for in there. At one point, I came across Burnside's
Come On In, and it quickly became my favorite album. It was heavily remixed, but the core of his blues was there. I grabbed some of his acoustic stuff and loved that too. After trying out some other people on the Fat Possum label, I realized that I like Country Blues the most (usually just a guy and his guitar), and especially Hill Country.