Sunday, July 8, 2012

The Best of the Blues


"You Don't Love Me" by Willie Cobbs is an example of a great blues song in my opinion, but not the stereotypical type of blues most people think of

Bessie Smith's "I Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl" is a classic raunchy blues song 

Nina Simone's tribute to the above song, "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl" is also a great blues song in my opinion, even though it straddles R&B and blues.

Slim Harpo's "King Bee" is also a great raunchy blues number that more closely resembles the stereotypical guitarist/vocalist blues form.

Robert Johnson's "Sweet Home Chicago" is a classic everyone knows

Billie Holiday's televised version of her own "Fine and Mellow" is a classic moment in blues/jazz history

Art Blakey's "Moanin" is also a classic in hard bop, a sub-genre of jazz that emphasized blues and gospel influences in bebop that was the most popular form of jazz among African-American audiences in the 1950s and 1960s.

I also find Art Blakey's "Roots and Herbs" great, soulful bluesy jazz

Muddy Waters' "Hoochie Coochie Man" is a well known blues standard. Classic Chicago blues.

Jimmy Smith's "The Sermon" is a good, but very long blues/jazz jam for fans of electric organs

Ornette Coleman's "Ramblin" is another great example of the blues form used in jazz

Mingus's "Moanin" is possibly better than Art Blakey's

John Coltrane's "Dahomey Dance" is also quite good

Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island" is also a great bluesy jazz number

Bessie Smith's "Backwater Blues" 

Bessie Smith's "Taint Nobody's Business If I Do" will take you back to early, urban blues which was dominated by black women singers with strong voices

Leadbelly's "The Bourgeois Blues" is a classic. Leadbelly is a legend in folk/blues music

Odetta's rendition of "Midnight Special" is also quite amazing. She's a black folk singer who started performing in the 1950s and led the folk music revival movement before Bob Dylan and other white folk singers became very popular. She has an amazing voice and sings spirituals, folk music, and blues. May she rest in peace.

Odetta's "Timber" ain't exactly blues but great folk singing. If more of the white folk singers had voices like hers I would listen to folk more often.

John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom" is also a blues classic

Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues"

Miles Davis's "All Blues" 

Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain"

Memphis Minnie's "When the Levees Break" was famously covered by Led Zeppelin

Thelonious Monk's "Straight No Chaser"

Alice Coltrane's "Turiya and Ramakrishna"

Cannonball Adderley's "One for Daddy-o" is a great blues featuring Miles Davis

Charles Mingus's "Haitian Fight Song"

Mingus's "Hog Callin' Blues"

Mingus's "So Long Eric"

Clifford Brown and Max Roach's "Blues Walk"

Dizzy Gillespie's "Blue 'N Boogie"

Hank Mobley's "Soul Station"

Jackie McLean's "Riff Raff"

Louis Jordan's "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie"

Wayne Shorter's "Fee Fi Fo Fum"

Max Roach's "Driva Man"

Miles Davis's "Walkin"

Sonny Rollins's "Blue 7"

Otis Redding's "Rock Me Baby"

Otis Redding's "Hawg For You Baby"

Ray Charles' "Drown In My Own Tears"

Ray Charles' "Night Time Is the Right Time" 

"Honky Tonk" by Bill Doggett and the James Brown funky cover

James Brown's "Night Train"

Sam Cooke's "Bring It On Home to Me" is based on a blues song

Howlin' Wolf's "Little Red Rooster"

Andrew Hill's "Black Fire" is rooted in the blues

Bobby Hutcherson's "Ghetto Lights"

Willie Dixon's "If the Sea Was Whiskey"

Dinah Washington's "Big Long Slidin' Thing" is another instance of raunchy blues

Dinah's "Long John Blues" is more raunchy blues

Dinah's "Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning"

Joe William's "Get Out My Life, Woman" is funky, big band jazz

Etta James' "At Last" has so much soul and is based on doo wop/blues progressions

John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen"

Lowell Fulson's "Three O'Clock Blues"

Lowell Fulson's "Tramp" is so funky

Bo Diddley's "Bo Diddley"

Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love"

Bo Diddley's "I Am A Man" (based on Hoochie Coochie Man)

Syl Johnson's "Is It Because I'm Black"

Howlin' Wolf's "Back Door Man"

Howlin' Wolf's "I Ain't Superstitious"

Howlin' Wolf's "Wang Dang Doodle"

Howlin' Wolf's "Spoonful"

Lowell Fulson's "Reconsider Baby"

Memphis Minnie's "Bumble Bee"

Etta James' "I Just Wanna Make Love With You"

Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Black Snake Moan"

Little Walter's "My Babe" is based on "This Train is bound for glory"

Etta James' "I'd Rather Go Blind" (Baby, baby, baby...")

Muddy Waters' "I Just Wanna Make Love To You"

Etta James' "All I Could Do Was Cry"

Leadbelly's "Midnight Special"

Blind Willie Johnson's "Nobody's Fault But Mine"

Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightnin'"

Robert Petaway's "Catfish Blues"

Muddy Waters' "Rolling Stone"

Muddy Waters' "She Moves Me"

Muddy Waters' "Baby Please Don't Go"

Bobby Bland's "I'll Take Care of You"

Muddy Waters' "You Can't Lose What You Never Had"

Little Walter's "Fast Boogie"

Little Walter's "Chicken Shack"

Little Walter's "Mellow Down Easy" (I Love this guy now, but only just discovered him tonight)

Little Walter's "Moonshine Blues"

Little Walter's "Off the Wall"

Little Walter's "You Better Watch Yourself"

Little Walter's "I Got to Find My Baby"

Little Walter's "Blue Midnight"

Little Walter's "I Don't Play"

Little Walter's "Everything Gonna Be Alright"

Little Walter's "Juke"

Little Walter's "Last Night I Lost the Best Friend"

Little Walter's "Temperature"

Little Walter's "Thunderbird"

Little Walker's "Shake Dancer"

Little Walker's "Going Down Slow"

Little Walter's "Don't Have to Hunt No More"

Little Walter's "Little Girl"

Little Walter's "Ah'w Baby"

Little Walter's "Flying Saucer"

Little Walter's "Confessin' the Blues"

Little Walter's "Nobody But You"

Little Walter's "Teenage Beat"

Little Walter's "Lights Out"

Little Walter's "Who"

Bobby Bland's "Farther Up the Road"

Bobby Bland's "Turn Your Love Light On"

Slim Harpo's "Rainin In My Heart"

Slim Harpo's "Baby Scratch My Back"

Otis Redding's cover, "Scratch My Back"

Dinah Washington's "Come Rain or Come Shine"

Dinah Washington's "Baby Get Lost"

Dinah Washington's "Evil Gal Blues"

Dinah Washington's "Willow Weep for Me"

Dinah Washington's "This Bitter Earth"

Dinah Washington's "Romance in the Dark"

Dinah Washington's "Teach Me Tonight"

Dinah Washington's "I Don't Hurt Anymore" is a country cover

Art Blakey's "Politely"

Count Basie's "Swinging the Blues"

Duke Ellington's "Things Ain't What They Used to Be"

Duke's "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue"

Dinah's "I Wanna Be Around"

Dinah's "Since I Fell For You"

Dinah's "Backwater Blues"

Dinah's "A Bad Case of the Blues"

Duke Ellington's "Blues of the Vagabond"

Dinah's "The Blues Ain't Nothing But a Woman Crying for Her Man"

Dinah's "Feel Like I Wanna Cry"

Dinah's "I'll Never Be Free"

Dinah's "I Could Write a Book"

Dinah's "Our Love is Here to Stay"

Dinah's "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair"

Bessie Smith's "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"

Solomon Burke's "Get Out My Life, Woman"

Muddy Waters' "Got My Mojo Working"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN9wM0jJFYE


Muddy Waters' "I'm Ready"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrKHz94rGpk


Chuck Berry's "Driftin' Blues"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn6SF-NYRF0


Etta James' "Trust in Me"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9m4PuED2dQ


Muddy Waters' "Forty Days and Forty Nights"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN-wZ6gdchc


Sonny Boy Williamson's "Bring It On Home"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUx6CIdDbz4


Sonny Boy Williamson's "Ninety Nine"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP668KiaY7E&feature=related


Muddy Waters' "Gypsy Woman"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzdsfnS8g6U


"Blues Wail" by Tiny Grimes and Coleman Hawkins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p51MT5OMw-I&feature=related
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