Too Slim & the Taildraggers are a hit on several continents, but at home in the Washington state city of Spokane, they're a little like the Rodney Dangerfield of blues bands. Despite the band's release of more than half-a-dozen CDs, and numerous national and international tours, many citizens, when first meeting the band's frontman and leader, Spokane native Tim "Too Slim" Langford, scratch their heads in non-recognition and ask what his profession is. Upon finding out that he's a blues musician, the next question is usually an inquiry concerning where the band performs. - Linda Seida

Peg Leg Sam was not your typical country-blues performer – he was in a class all his own. Born in 1911, he naturally embraced the country-blues of his generation, while also maintaining the early medicine show roots he learned as a child. Sam's sometimes humorous and always impassioned monologues, combined with harp virtuosity (he sometimes played two of them at once), came from a life of dedicated showmanship built up after years of passing the hat for crowds of spectators. Since Sam was definitely under-recorded, he has gained status as one of those irreplaceable characters who fell through the cracks, making these sessions fortunate to have available. These tracks were originally released on the Trix label as Medicine Show Man, and are now available as Kickin' It on 32 Blues. Sam is accompanied separately on the disc by guitarists Baby Tate and Rufe Johnson, from two South Carolina sessions recorded in Spartanburg during 1970 and Jonesville two years later.

The first eight tracks of this 79-minute compilation of late-'60s material originally appeared on Arhoolie's Hooker'n'Steve LP; a couple of others showed up on Arhoolie's His First & Last Recordings, while the four remaining cuts were previously unreleased. Hooker didn't have long to live when these were laid down in 1968 and (for the most part) 1969, but he's in real good form on guitar, although he only takes an occasional vocal (other band members help out on other tracks, and some are instrumental). Indications are from the liner notes that the sessions were run on a no-frills budget, but it's very respectable '60s Chicago electric blues with a shade of funky soul and a hot live feel, and Hooker's guitar has an upfront bite and presence. Actually, the instrumentals are highlights, particularly "Hooker N' Steve" with its smoking guitar-organ duets. - Richie Unterberger

This album is marked by the interaction between John Lee Hooker and his guitar-playing cousin Earl. Earl, who succumbed to illness in 1970, was a fine bluesman in his own right, possessing a formidable slide technique. Many are unaware that the two often performed together, and the band that accompanies John Lee here also backed Earl frequently. The opening cut, then, a slow 12-bar number called "The Hookers" is not about ladies of the evening, but rather about the gentlemen in question.

Heard here less than a year before his death, Earl still sounds frisky and versatile, often utilizing a funky wah-wah style without ever descending into the psychedelic excesses that plagued so many late-'60s electric blues albums. One of the most effective cuts is "Lonesome Mood," a low-key, one-chord stomper in the classic John Lee mold, where Earl's wah-wah guitar meshes with Johnny Walker's organ and Jefferey Carp's harmonica to create a subtly shifting, sensuously undulating web of sound over which John Lee works his hoodoo. On IF YOU MISS 'IM, John Lee definitely benefits from keeping it in the family.

Am I Blue is another studio outtakes release, mostly focusing on bluesier pieces. Highlights include more complete versions of the previously released Country Blues and Three Little Bears, an earlier take of Voodoo Chile (from the Electric Ladyland sessions), and the epic twenty-seven minute Villanova Junction Blues studio jam.

The repertoire of this January 1977 Paris session consists entirely of Dupree originals. Typical of his cheeky humour and bubbling good spirits (Hamhock And Lima Beans, Let Me In, I'm Drunk, Phone Calf), it nevertheless reveals the natural sadness of the blues, never far from the surface in any of his work (Who Do You Love ?, Let's Try Over Again). Indeed, Jack's personal life weighed more heavily in his songs than, because of the fun aspect, is generally realised. At this time, just recently divorced and separated from his young children, he was a lonely man, and destined to remain so.
Like all blues singers of his time, Jack also loved the occasional wallow in sentimentality. When I was due to visit him in Sweden in the summer of 1989 - where he was convalescing after drastic surgery - he made a particular point of asking me to bring him a cassette copy of a side he had recorded in Paris in January 1977. When I got there, he played it all week long, almost non-stop. It was-his Real Combination For Love. Knowing that he liked it so much, why not now listen to it with him ?
We have rounded out the present CD with five titles from a 1983 session on which Champion Jack Dupree is accompanied by singer Brenda Bell and guitarist Louisiana Red. - Don Waterhouse

Midnight Blue recorded in 2001 is pure and balanced in his vocals and harmonica/harp playing. Williams harmonica/harp playing never dominated a song, if anything it added some feel and fills in nicely.

"Messin' With The Kid", on which Wells comes on like a young Muddy, proved to be a great success in the clubs and even provoked a response from Muddy, which he typically called "Messin' With The Man". The rest of the session produced another version of "So Tired" and a further attempt to emulate the hit formula of "Little By Little". It was called "You Sure Look Good To Me" and must have made some impression, for it turns up word-for-word three years later masquerading as "Oo-Wee Baby" on the Chess "Folk Festival Of The Blues" album.

Hailing from New York City, the Floyd Lee Band formed in early 2001. Fronted by 75 year old Mississippi bluesman powerhouse Floyd Lee and at his side the dynamic guitarist, Joel Poluck, who represents the next generation of guitar heroes. The Floyd Lee Band has created their own sound and style without compromise and with this release they carry on the tradition of pure, raw blues. Doctors Devils & Drugs is the band's fourth release on the Amogla label and it is considered to be one of the toughest and heaviest sounds ever heard on a blues CD. This recording is also an important part of a documentary film about Floyd Lee's (Full Moon Lightnin') emotional return home to Mississippi to search for his family. The Floyd Lee Band is currently gearing up for another world tour. – cdbaby.com

Of all the post-Fathers & Sons attempts at updating Muddy's sound in collaboration with younger white musicians, this album worked best because they let Muddy be himself, producing music that compared favorably to his concerts of the period, which were wonderful. His final album for Chess (recorded at Levon Helm's Woodstock studio, not in Chicago), with Helm and fellow Band-member Garth Hudson teaming up with Muddy's touring band, it was a rocking (in the bluesy sense) soulful swansong to the label where he got his start. Muddy covers some songs he knew back when (including Louis Jordan's "Caldonia" and "Let The Good Times Roll"), plays some slide, and generally has a great time on this Grammy-winning album. This record got lost in the shuffle between the collapse of Chess Records and the revival of Muddy's career under the auspices of Johnny Winter, and was forgotten until 1995. The CD contains one previously unreleased number, "Fox Squirrel." - Bruce Eder (AMG)

Recorded for Prestige's Bluesville subsidiary in 1960 and reissued on CD for Fantasy's Original Blues Classics (OBC) series in 1990, Lightnin' is among the rewarding acoustic dates Lightnin' Hopkins delivered in the early '60s. The session has an informal, relaxed quality, and this approach serves a 48-year-old Hopkins impressively well on both originals like "Thinkin' 'Bout an Old Friend" and the familiar "Katie Mae" and enjoyable interpretations of Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee's "Back to New Orleans" and Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's "Mean Old Frisco." Hopkins' only accompaniment consists of bassist Leonard Gaskin and drummer Belton Evans, both of whom play in an understated fashion and do their part to make this intimate setting successful. From the remorseful "Come Back Baby" to more lighthearted, fun numbers like "You Better Watch Yourself" and "Automobile Blues," Lightnin' is a lot like being in a small club with Hopkins as he shares his experiences, insights and humor with you. - Alex Henderson (AMG)

This, Wolf's last hurrah, is his final studio album. Cut with his regular working band, the Wolf Gang, everything here works well, despite Detroit Junior's annoying use of harpsichord on several tracks. Highlights include Eddie Shaw's "Coon on the Moon," Wolf's own "Moving" and "Stop Using Me," and both takes of "Speak Now Woman." Not the place to start a Wolf collection by any means, but a great place to end up. - Cub Koda (AMG)