Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey
This is by far the best and most comprehensive introduction to recorded blues ever assembled, drawing styles, record labels, and eras together with the efficiency of a spider’s web. These five discs--tied to the hit-and-miss PBS film seriesMartin Scorsese Presents the Blues--embrace field hollers, early queensMa RaineyandBessie Smith, the music’s first composerW.C. Handy, Delta slide guitarists, string bands, piano barrelhousers, jazz geniusesCount BasieandLionel Hampton, Texas hotshots, lyric poetsPercy MayfieldandWillie Dixon, Chicago powerhouses fromMuddy WaterstoBuddy Guy,Howlin’ Wolfand howling white boys, soulkittensEtta JamesandJanis Joplin, juke joint brawlers likeHound Dog Taylor, African torchbearerAli Farka Toure, modern guitar heroesStevie Ray VaughanandLuther Allison, and even recent hit-makersPeggy Scott-AdamsandSusan Tedeschi. And that’s just a smidgen of the talents represented across more than 100 cuts. Nonetheless, there are grave omissions in disc five, which focuses on contemporary blues. The raw electric sound of present-day Mississippi, embodied byR.L. Burnsideand other artists on the Fat Possum label, has done much to open the ears of college-age audiences and should be included. Also absent are the music’s most important contemporary innovators: Afro-blues fusionistCorey Harris, psychedelic folk bluesmanOtis Taylorand rap-blues proselytizerChris Thomas King. Still, it’s obvious this collection is a work of devotion and intelligence as well as commerce.--Ted Drozdowski