Reddit mentions: The best vocal blues music

He changed mine too. I'll never forget the process of how I found out about Leadbelly. I was about 10 or 12 years old in the mid 1980s. At the time I was pretty heavily into Led Zeppelin. One day, I noticed that the track "Gallows Pole" on III was credited to someone named "Leadbelly".

My best friend's parents had a very diverse and interesting music collection (also how I found out about Ravi Shankar, but that's another story) which included a few compilation albums with some Leadbelly tracks - Midnight Special and Goodnight Irene being the ones that stand out in my memory. After that I was hooked on him - there was no going back.

A quick look at my iTunes library today shows I have since amassed 25 albums totaling 434 tracks of his songs (probably a few dupes in there). I also have a copy of the Paramount Pictures presentation of the Gordon Parks film "Leadbelly" - you can't bury a black legend like Leadbelly! It's actually a pretty fun film with a great soundtrack by Fred Karlin and has a very early appearance of Ernie Hudson (billed as Earnest L. Hudson).

I just wish that that film was widely available to buy/rent/stream/whatever so I could talk about it with other Leadbelly fans. Seems like it was buried because of the blaxploitation aspect of the film.

So, now I play the album Leadbelly Sings For Children for my 1 year old son. A new generation will come to know and love Leadbelly if I have anything to say about it!

My cut & paste answer for every time this is asked....

Here's a chronological mix of songs, briefly covering the history of jazz:

King Oliver - Dippermouth Blues

Bessie Smith ft Louis Armstrong - St Louis Blues

Louis Armstrong - West End Blues (1928)

Duke Ellington - The Mooche (10-17-1928 -- best version)

Billie Holiday - Summertime

Coleman Hawkins - Body and Soul

Dizzy Gillespie & Charlie Parker - Shaw Nuff

Charlie Parker - Cool Blues

Thelonious Monk - Round Midnight (solo)

Miles Davis - All Blues

Ornette Coleman - Lonely Woman

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme pt. 1

Alice Coltrane - Journey to Satchidananda

Miles Davis - Miles Runs the Voodoo Down
**

Here's a list of great/important albums by decade:


1920s

For the 20s, it's really important to get the right remaster, or else it will sound like shit. The releases below are all top-notch.

[King Oliver] (http://www.amazon.com/Off-Record-Complete-1923-Recordings/dp/B000K2VK8Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410051369&sr=8-1&keywords=off+the+record+king+oliver)

[Louis Armstrong] (http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Fives-Sevens-Louis-Armstrong/dp/B00001ZWLP/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410051403&sr=8-1&keywords=louis+armstrong+hot+fives)

[Sidney Bechet] (http://www.amazon.com/Young-Sidney-Bechet-1923-1925/dp/B001CKYVNO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=undefined&sr=8-1&keywords=sidney+bechet+young)

[Duke Ellington] (http://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Clinkscales-Cotton-Club-Vol/dp/B0007GFFZM/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410051511&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=duke+ellington+clinksales)

Song highlights:
King Oliver -- Canal St Blues, Dippermouth Blues, Riverside Blues, Chimes Blues

Louis Armstrong -- West End Blues, Muggles, Tight Like This, Gutbucket Blues, St James Infirmary

Sidney Bechet -- Kansas City Man Blues, New Orleans Hop Scop Blues, Texas Moaner Blues

Johnny Dodds -- Perdido St Blues

Jimmie Noone -- Blues My Naught Sweetie Gives to Me

1930s

Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Lester Young. I dunno, I need to learn more about the 30s.

1940s

Charlie Parker -- A Studio Chronicle 40-48. Nuff said.

1950s

Thelonious Monk - With John Coltrane, With Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Misterioso, Brilliant Corners.

Miles Davis - '58 Sessions, Kind of Blue, The Legendary Stockholm Concert

Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come

1960s

Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um, Antibes, Presents Charles Mingus

John Coltrane - Plays the Blues, Village Vanguard Master Takes, A Love Supreme, First Meditations

Pharoah Sanders - Tauhid, Karma

Miles Davis - Filles de Kilimanjaro, In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew

1970s

Alice Coltrane - Journey in Satchidananda

Miles Davis - On the Corner, Agharta

| | |
|-:|:-|
|name|Sister Rosetta Tharpe|
|about artist|"Sister" Rosetta Tharpe (1915–1973) was a pioneering U.S. Gospel singer and songwriter who attained great popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and early rock accompaniment. She became the first great recording star of Gospel music, first surfacing on the pop charts in 1939 with "This Train", her version of the traditional gospel standard. Born Rosetta Nubin on the 20th March 1915 in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, she began performing at age four... ([more on last.fm](http://www.last.fm/music/Sister Rosetta Tharpe))|
|album|The Gospel Of The Blues, released Sep 2003|
|track|Didn't It Rain|
|images|album image, artist image|
|links|track on amazon, album on amazon|
|tags|gospel, blues, soul, rock|
|similar|Mahalia Jackson, The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Big Mama Thornton, The Golden Gate Quartet, Big Maybelle|
|metrics|lastfm listeners: 63,155, lastfm plays: 358,450, youtube plays: 760,947, radd.it score: 4.5|


Please downvote this comment if this data is incorrect!
I am a bot by radd.it data services. I have been requested to post these reports.

Ornette - Art Of The Improvisers (or Shape Of Jazz To Come...or Dancing In Your Head)

Mingus - Oh Yeah

Miles - Live-Evil

Sonny Rollins - Our Man In Jazz

Albert Ayler - Spiritual Unity

and, some bonus box sets that won't cost much (if any) more than a cd:

Charlie Parker - Chasin' The Bird

Cecil Taylor - 2 T's For A Lovely T (mp3)

Duke - Mrs. Clinkscales To The Cotton Club

Okay, so I'm biased towards acoustic blues, especially 20s-30s stuff, but here are my suggestions.
Since many of the greatest blues artists recorded before full albums became popular, I'm a big advocate of compilations, since they highlight some of the lesser known artists who maybe didn't record a ton of stuff, compiled by people who REALLY know their shit. Yazoo Records and Document are both absolutely killer, and most of the Document stuff is on Spotify.

Speaking of Spotify, I dunno if you have it or not, but here's an old country blues playlist I made not long ago.

Here are some compilations that blew my mind when I was first getting into blues:
-The Best There Ever Was(Yazoo), Roots n' Blues: Retrospective 1925-1950. I'm sure your local library has this. Roots of Rock(featuring songs later interpreted by rock bands), I Can't Be Satisfied (All ladies all the time)

For me, I got into some blues compilations with lots of different artists, something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Legends-Blues-Various-Artists/dp/B00000274Z/ref=ntt_mus_dp_dpt_1

After a while, you start to get a feel for what you like and what you don't like. Reading the liner notes helped put things into context. It's a whole lot easier these days with digital.

Good luck with the harp! I tried it myself but I never got good at it. As mentioned, Little Walter is a good place to start, as is Charlie Musselwhite.

I've got two brand new sets of DVDs and CDs any true Deadhead would love to have. The first is the 14 disc Grateful Dead: All The Years Combine Box Set and the second is the Formerly the Warlocks Box: October 8 & 9, 1989 (6 CD Set) that comes with a literal pile of collectibles from that era. Both sets sell for $100 and have only seen the inside of a player once. I'm loath to part with them, but need the money, so I'd be willing to consider offers in the $125-150 range or sale of one or the other separately.

Check'm out on Amazon for full product specs and set lists here and here.

Cheers!

That's the Ella Fitzgerald & Her Famous Orchestra version, the album is called Live at the Savoy 1939-40 (Amazon Link). I recommend that whole album, it's really good (and for some reason quite overplayed at Balboa events this past year - at least the ones I went to)

Check out Lightning Hopkins.

This is Shotgun Blues, though not the best version I've heard. Also, Lonesome Dog Blues.


There is lots of great stuff like you describe in the Lomax field recordings. There are a ton of them, but check out these prison songs.

edit: formatting

Actually, I do listen to quite a bit of early 20th century music.
(Currently on this, which I can't recommend enough)

Yes, he was a groundbreaking act. Agreed.
But, I just never had an ear for it.

Here's a obvious pick. THough it would be hard for me to choose between that and this one

A good place to start is the People Take Warning! 3 CD compilation put out by Thompson Square. Its 3 discs cover the themes of man vs. machine disasters, man vs. natural disasters, & man vs. man disasters. It's outstanding.