Wait until the very end folks Chad has an honorable mention that is KILLER!!!!! I've eight out of ten and probably most of Chads next best of blues list too.
Onya Chad. Your blues recommendations are absolutely fabulous. I have pursued a few of these in the past due to your work- these are the best blues albums- and to give Junior Wells a bit of airtime is yet another chunk of gold. Cheers from Oz
Taj Mahals first 2 are some of the best ever and no one has released them proper yet (well pure pleasure did natchl blues but they are cagey about sources) but that Taj Mahal self titled would sell buckets ... id buy one for sure
Great list Chad. Damn, only have about half these! On the money with The Hot Spot - I see the movie is being rereleased in a couple of weeks on Blu-Ray. Be great if you could licence it again. 🙏
Interesting…i didn’t know acoustic sounds put out the Mighty Sam McClain, “Give it up to Love” album. I picked up that SACD when it was released on AudioQuest label; and i got it at the New York Audiophile Expo back in the 90’s. There i met and got a picture with Jimmy Lee Robinson; Chad was there, too, however i didn’t to “meet” him. He was busy. I also picked up Little Hatch and a couple others then, too. Most of these top 10 i do own as many were released on SACD by Acoustic Sounds - and that sound never wears out or grows old :). Love ‘em. Was so looking forward to the Lightnin’ Hopkins, “Soul Blues” on SACD, but it never came out…(though the website said it was already mastered at the same times as the LP… but, yeah… sat in my cart for years… then it disappeared.) Happens i guess.
Some of my favs are Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Son House, Little Milton, Howlin' Wolf and Bobby Blue Bland. There are so many others and Acoustic Sounds has them covered so well. Try finding and old blues album in decent condition as it is, not easy. As many know, the UHQR Aja is a stunner, sounds excellent. I heard my friends copy of it and we did an A/B with the OG AB1006 ABC Records pressing and there is quite an improvement. Bernie got to kick the can again where Aja is concerned. He topped his own work from back in 1977, impressive.
Chad, you are the man! I have a lot of these you have in your top 10s both the 33 and the 45 rpm's in some cases and I got quite a few of these on your recommendations made previously. You have not steered me wrong, except the ones I like the least are the lightning hopkins titles. In my opinion Muddy Waters Folk Singer stands head and shoulders above the Lightning Hopkins Acoustic Blues titles.
I always love it when you talk about the blues, Chad! 😻 Thank you for this list of great blues albums and something to really consider buying. I've book marked this video for future viewing. I'd love to see more videos with blues recommendations. By the way, what does Sonny Boy Williamson's breath smell like? 👍💖🎸😎
great reviiew,ty chad,i just bought a box from analogue production it is from 2008 ,BLUE NOTE Reissues - Vinyl Box (25x2 Vinyl 45-RPM LP Set) it is not on discogs, but anyway,some are sounding good,some not, the seller told me that is why he sold it to me,here in my country its not easy got recrods from you,
Some of those are in my top ten but others, no way. Best recordings and best albums are two different things. Blues and Rock are genres where very raw sounding albums are often the best.
2nd Top Ten. I have all of these, lol. Drove up from Dallas to see Sam play at Blue Heaven. Glad I did. Any chance of that making vinyl? Respect Yourself.
I am considering. It is a killer sounding record. Had it available for years, recommended it every chance I got, but as always, a lot of people seem to wait.
I assume you must surely have tried to get licensing for Howlin’ Wolf at some point and it just couldn’t happen for whatever reason, but that’s one I’d snatch up in a heartbeat if you pressed any.
I will buy any of em that you have pressings of if you will use USPS to ship them to me in Alaska. I have a long list of your stuff i would love to buy but not paying fedex/ups to AK. $30.00 for ONE LP
We love Doug. We are friends with him and he's a great musician and this is a great sounding album, you're right, we should have put him in: store.acousticsounds.com/d/150857/Doug_MacLeod-Come_To_Find-45_RPM_Vinyl_Record
You are the man Chad thanks Gram parsons said there are 2 kinds of music Zippidoodah music and The Blues! Please follow me next video the most famous Side People !
Problem with the blues for me is i can't relate to any of it and im never in the mood to listen to some poor guy spill his heart out and tell me how much pain and suffering he's going through, its just such a downer of a genre. Yeah it can sound nice but the subject matter isn't what i want to hear, i have a similar thing with country music, i have all my grandfathers country albums but i can't listen to them because they're just sad. Listening to music and crying isnt my cup of tea
I listen to only blues, but I prefer white blues. John Lee Hooker and Jimi Hendrix are the only black bluesmen I listen to much. The reason I like white blues is because it sounds smoother and more refined to me. Oddly, I don't much care for SRV's blues. He was a very skilled player, but his blues licks just don't work for me. The black blues sounds crude to me and that is why I don't care for it. Buddy Guy works for me sometimes, though. The world of blues music is diverse enough that people who love blues can have completely different music that they listen to. A friend of mine prefers black blues because he likes the singing better. To each his own I guess!
This comes across as total nonsense. You are entitled to your own preferences, but the blues is a music that owes everything to its African American origins and by only listening to white artists you are missing the whole point about the blues and what it means and where it comes from. I am from Ireland and this would be the equivalent of me saying that I prefer when French people sing Irish songs because they are smoother in their performances. By your comments, I suspect that you are quite young (talking about blues licks etc), so give it time and, hopefully, you will get to appreciate what the blues are all about and who the real masters of the genre are and were.
I am 68 and have listened to many black blues musicians and find most too crude for my tastes. Jimi Hendrix, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy and Melvin Taylor are my favorite black bluesmen. Robin Trower, Rory Gallagher, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Gary Moore, Peter Green, Kim Simmonds and Alvin Lee are my favorite UK bluesmen. My USA favorites are Roy Buchanan, Johnny Winter, Mike Bloomfield, Duane Allman, Alan Wilson, Henry Vestine, Stevie Ray Vaughan, George Thorogood, Jeff Healey, Joe Bonamassa, Mike Welch, Walter Trout, Jim Thackery and Sue Foley. The black guys for the most part don't do anything for me except those four I mentioned. I play blues guitar myself, so I know the music inside and out.
@@nitrousninja882 I am older than you and I have met many of the great bluesmen when they visited my country. Rory Gallagher, who you mentioned, was not from the UK. He was a proud Irishman. As I suspected, your interest is largely related to guitar players, but the blues can be played on any instrument. It is also a vocal music, as a genre as opposed to a style, where the instrument supports the singer. An issue with the vocal side of things is often when someone from suburban Sussex or, indeed, Ireland starts singing a song in a false African American accent with references to picking cotton or little red roosters in their barnyard. As I said, you are entitled to your preferences, but to profess to love a music genre and to exclude the originators and some the greatest ever performers of the music from your listening seems to miss the point about what the blues is about. Chad Kassem certainly gets it, as is obvious from the albums which he issues and reissues.
Yes, I am a guitarist and that has influenced my views on blues music. My introduction to the blues was Mike Bloomfield on The Butterfield Blues Band album "East-West" and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton also Redhouse by Jimi Hendrix. I've listened to all the great black bluesmen and there are certain songs by many of them that I am fond of. My favorite blues continues to be material by those musicians I mentioned before, however. Just tonight I discovered Frank Marino's cover of Albert King's song "I'll Play the Blues For You". Sorry about referring to the great Irish guitarist Rory Gallagher as a UK musician. My mother's folks came from Cork County, Ireland to Pennsylvania, USA over a century ago. I'm glad you have such a deep appreciation for blues music. My good friend Dave listens to blues for the vocals and he prefers the black blues performers. It is my love of blues guitar that has kept me playing all these years and I am still improving to this day.