Thoroughly entertaining downhome blues, intricate ragtime, hokum and instrumental guitar stomps.

The greatest gospel bluesman; one of the very greatest bottle-neck guitarists.
Almost overwhelmingly intense and gripping.

Sparkling, uproarious ragtime and blues — randy, porno and ooh-er — with Sidney Bechet, Bessie Smith and Jelly Roll Morton.
Lucille “got-fat-from-fuckin” Bogan is the filthiest of the lot: “I got nipples on my titties, big as the end of my thumb, I got somethin’ between my legs’ll make a dead man come.”

Stokes, Memphis Minnie, Furry Lewis, Gus Cannon and co. 180g, well-pressed.

Bumptious sauce recorded for Paramount in 1929 by different lineups including Leroy Carr, Scrapper Blackwell, Tampa Red and Blind Blake, and Bob Robinson on banjo and clarinet. Archetypal Crumb; 180g.

45s and LPs spanning the period 1964-1973, including his long-lost album debut. The original material here trumps the folk chestnuts. Alasdair Roberts does Lord Randall a lot better, has to be said.

‘To hear fully the subtlety in Furry’s singing is to gain an insight not only into the singer, but into the creative process of the blues itself,’ wrote Sam Charters. Vocalions and Victors by the Memphis legend.

Excellent compilation of country blues, 1933-39.
Bo Carter, Scrapper Blackwell, Walter Davis, Black Ace… and less well-known names, like Peanut The Kidnapper and One Arm Slim.
‘One Arm Slim’s piano is rather erratic due to the fact that he is probably using only one hand,’ according to the sleevenotes.