Killer diller guitar blues.
‘Rock and blues guitarists alike owe a gargantuan debt to Ike Turner. His ferocious whammy-bar hammering, choppy chording, and ultra-aggressive string-bending solos were way ahead of their time from the mid-1950s onwards.’

Singers like Jimmy Thomas, Stacy Johnson, Vernon Guy, Jessie Smith, Bobby John, Jackie Brenston, Venetta Fields, Tina Turner, Ernest Lane, Dee Dee Johnson — fronting a super-tough Kings Of Rhythm lineup.

Their 1961 Sue Records debut, including I Idolize You and A Fool In Love, plus ten more sides from the same period.

The 45 reissue of a Tune Town 78, and a scorcher of a CD generously covering various late-fifties Ike Turner projects.

Bobby Womack, with brothers Curtis, Harry, Friendly Jr and Cecil; produced by Sam Cooke between June 1961 and September 1964, for his own SAR label. Gospel as the Womack Brothers; R&B as the Valentinos, including the original version of It’s All Over Now. With seven previously unreleased tracks, and excellent notes, drawing on interviews with several members of the group.

A Gene Barge production from 1967, with a winning mixture of rocking gospel funk and spiritualized ballads. A nice version of Buddy Miles’ We Got To Live Together.

A New Breed R&B humdinger.

‘You could scarcely find two more contrasting bottleneck stylists… the ‘Hawaiian Guitar Wizard’ played upbeat, concerned with smooth tone. Arnold usually played solo, with strident tones, generally frenetic…’

With The Aces live in 1966, just a few months after Hoodoo Man Blues came out.

1928-35 recordings by the Memphis bluesman (with Cherokee Indian close by in his family tree) — including That’s No Way To Get Along, later covered by the Rolling Stones as Prodigal Son.

‘America’s greatest singer’; ‘the greatest gospel singer of her generation’; ‘the greatest singer ever’ (Pulse, Time, Rolling Stone). Check the title track for her influence on Little Richard, The Isley Brothers, James Brown and co. Stuffed with gems.

‘The most avant- garde blues performer ever recorded. No punk rock band has ever matched the jagged acerbic fury of the riffs Williams played 35 years ago. No rapper has approached his ability to evoke the torment of life in prison or bend language to cast an eerie spell over a chance encounter with a seductive woman’ (New York Times).
‘It’s difficult to approve the banalities of most blues singers after listening to Robert Pete Williams’ (Peter Guralnick, Feel Like Going Home).

The ten tracks of the classic Louisana Blues album recorded in July 1966 in Berkeley under the supervision of John Fahey for his Takoma imprint… plus scarce or previously unreleased studio and live recordings made in France and Italy in 1977-78.

A limited-edition CD.

With Big Joe Williams, Robert McCoy, Henry Townsend, Yank Rachell and co.

‘Primarily the work of Southern born bluesmen who immigrated to Chicago before the Second World War, but whose careers endured into the postwar era,’ this was the first Nighthawk release, with the label taking its name from a Robert McCoy recording featuring Big Joe Williams and Sonny Boy Williamson, included here. (‘I have prowled so long / Till it made my knee bones sore.’) With Big Bill Bronzy, Tampa Red, Washboard Sam, Johnny Shines and co.

Seventeen gems of fierce funk, rapturous soul and transcendent disco and boogie, super-charged with celebration and affirmativeness, loaded with roaring choirs, rocking horns and popping bass guitars, from the years leading up to Savoy’s acquisition by Malaco.

The former Flair and Leiber and Stoller go-to is a rock ‘n’ roll hero. A charged, witty, extrovert guide to its glory days — from doo wop through blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll… into soul. Terrific stuff.

In the sixties they shared bills with every gospel superstar going (not to mention Little Bald Head Johnny, who had no tongue, and Mule Man, who presumably had a big willie and pendulous balls).