Search - Various Artists :: Crucial Guitar Blues

Great Blues Sampler from Alligator Records

P. Jarosz | Gulf Coast, Texas | 11/15/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Calling a CD 'Crucial Guitar Blues' is a good marketing technique rather than just calling it an Alligator Records sampler. Having said that, the good people from Alligator have picked some of the hottest guitar work from their library of artists. The gem is a scintillating version of 'Double Whammy' with Lonnie Mack and Stevie Ray Vaughn. (Essentially Lonnie's classic 'Wham' times two). The only problem is the 3.5 minute tune ends way too quick and leaves you wanting for more. As you listen to the CD, you soon realize that a lot of the great electric blues guitarists that are featured here are no longer with us: besides SRV, Roy Buchanan (who plays a smokin' instrumental on this CD), the great iceman Albert Collins, the Arkansas-raised-Chicago-based bluesman Son Seals who delivers a soulful blues tune here, fellow Chicago bluesman Luther Allison and his raw frenzied style, and Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown who was a master of blending jazz & blues and plays one of his classics here. You also get a biting blues tune by Johnny Winter from his Guitar Slinger days and a cookin' tune from Little Charlie & The Nightcats. Bottom line is the CD is a bargain for the price and includes a broad plethora of electric blues styles along with some incandescent guitar work."

Wondering What Blues Guitar Is All About. This Is The Place

Tim Holek | 03/16/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Various Artists

"Crucial Guitar Blues"

Alligator Records ALCD 114



Contemporary Chicago blues guitar master Luther Allison plays with angst on "All The King's Horses". New messiah, Coco Montoya, proves he is at the top of the blues-rock heap by erupting on "Same Old Thing". The often imitated but never duplicated Albert Collins ferociously delivers "Lights Are On But Nobody's Home". "I Can't Hear Nothing But The Blues" comes from blues guitar deity Son Seal's most under-rated release while "Double Whammy" combines a blues-rock master (Lonnie Mack) and a protégé (Stevie Ray Vaughan).



If you are wondering what blues guitar and/or what Alligator Records is all about, this is the place to start.



-- Tim Holek

"