#61 - Freddie King's "Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King" (1961)

C.S. Lewis, the professor, children's book author, and Christian apologist once wrote on the problem of pain.  Our inability to understand it as a phenomenon, he said, stems from the limits on our perception.  Feeling pain is primarily a sensory experience.  How can you analyze what you feel as you feel it?  Similarly, analyzing pain requires reason.  And once you think about pain rationally, you are no longer feeling it in the moment.  Similarly, Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King is one of those albums that appeals mostly to two categories of listeners: dancers and guitarists.  The dancers, as is their wont, couldn't care a hair what's going on musically so long as it moves them.  And guitarists, looking to pick up a few tricks from a master, cease to consider the music from a purely emotional perspective.  Of the three wise "Kings" of the electric blues (the others being Albert & B.B.), Freddie is the only one whose greatest hits were more often than not instrumentals.  And, as this album's title implies, these are songs meant for soirees, ditties to dance to.  Relegating King to the realm of "dance music," however, would overlook the impact he had on subsequent scores of guitarists, like Eric Clapton, who took his techniques and naturalistic sound to new heights.  But while these later generations would employ complicated song structures to showcase their stuff, all King needs is a serviceable backbeat to help you shake a leg.  The lead and best track "Hide Away" boasts a deceptively simple sound achieved by a series of rolling guitar licks that bend the notes, coaxing them into one another.  This may not be flashy music, but neither is it hard to like.  Grade: B

#42 - Muddy Waters' "At Newport" (1960)

'Twas the daytime in Newport, the afternoon show
when a Delta-born bluesman stood rarin' to go.
The folkies had flocked from far and from near
in hopes he'd play blues they'd all come to hear.

The buttoned-down crowd nestled snug in their seats
(no visions of dancing to those big Chi-town beats)
and Muddy at the mic-stand, his band at his back,
broke full-throttle through with a sonic attack. 

They jived just like butterflies, they stung hard like bees,
"I Got My Brand On You" had 'em all weak in the knees.
But then "Hoochie Coochie Man" started up soon
and the crowd - to a man - could not help but swoon.

The sun and the heat likely both took their toll,
but neither deprived the poor crowd of its soul.
No, that was Muddy's, his prize fair and square.
He scalped 'em with sweetness, with grit, and with flare.

With his band, he was lethal, so poised and so tight,
having logged all those hours in the juke joints each night.
In rope-a-dope fashion, he reeled in the fish,
called out their songs like he was granting a wish:
"Now, 'Tiger,'
Now, 'Mojo,'
and now, 'Soon Forgotten.'"
Their "I Feel So Good" made "O.K." look rotten.
To the end of the song!
To the end of the set!
With "Mojo" once more
(as if you could forget!)

His harp, how it zig-zagged! His keyboards, how jazzy!
His drums brought out big guns, so thund'rous and spazzy!
His speech between songs was humble, polite,
bringing black southern charm to the young northern white.
The lyrics he slurred and motorboat-barked,
and the axe in his hands - so electric it sparked -
sent currents through him, from his brain to his belly.
Ladies shook when he sang, like a roll full of jelly.

With "Goodbye Newport Blues," he got up and went.
Believe it or not, a half hour was spent
on just nine little songs, of which none was a dud...
...and that is how Newport got baptized in Mud.

Grade: A 

#41 - Jimmy Reed's "Rockin' with Reed" (1959)

When it comes to the blues, "it all sounds the same" is a frequent refrain from the uninitiate.  Of course, epithets like this wear the guise of considered opinion, as if, after exhaustive research, one has concluded that there is water, water everywhere but not a drop one would deign to drink.  Jimmy Reed is especially susceptible to this type of critique, being such a populist purveyor of the blues.  Yes, you'll hear those familiar twelve-bar chord progressions, for the most part played slow and steady.  Reed is no virtuoso and never aims to "challenge" his listeners with experimental noodling or soaring solos.  But don't confuse his genial, unambitious style with lack of talent or vision.  What he seems to understand, maybe better than anyone, is that the foundational pattern of the blues was established not merely because of its simplicity, but rather its deep, abiding power.  In the right hands it becomes the sturdy skeletal framework upon which the musician may hang the sustaining stuff of life.  In Reed's hands, the way he adorns that skeleton becomes everything, which is what someone who thinks "it all sounds the same" will miss ten times out of ten.  The most serious charge I can lob at this album, is that its title constitutes false advertising.  "Rockin' with Reed" is the last track and it does, indeed, rock, but the rest of the songs here do everything but.  There's his loving desperation on "A String to Your Heart," his penitence (and incorrigibility) on "I Know It's a Sin," his smirking sense of humor on "Take Out Some Insurance," and his smooth cool on "The Moon is Rising."  The blues structure is limited and requires a kind of lyrical economy, so he wrings the most out of his lines when he throws in alliterative touches like "green grass grows" on "Down in Virginia."  In the same song, he flexes his vocal range, finishing off each verse with a low, smoldering tremolo that hits like a haymaker every time.  Blues like this teaches you to "see a world in a grain of sand," to love those tiny details, those little moments that make all the difference.  Grade: A-

#21 - Mississippi John Hurt's "The Immortal Mississippi John Hurt" (1967)

Released posthumously, The Immortal Mississippi John Hurt and the equally revelatory Last Sessions represent a final testament to a once-in-a-lifetime talent the twentieth century very nearly missed altogether.  John Hurt worked as a farm laborer for most of his life.  He'd play for parties and gatherings of friends and family, but he never thought seriously about a career as a bluesman.  Even after impressing a talent scout for Okeh Records and releasing a set of songs for that label in 1928, he was dismissed as "not commercially viable" or whatever the equivalent jackassery was at the time.  Then along came the Depression and Hurt forgot about professional music almost as quickly as it forgot about him.  Fast forward to the folk revival of the 1950's and 60's.  Those who relished the songs immortalized on Harry Smith's legendary Anthology of American Folk Music heard the two cuts attributed to some unknown named "Mississippi John Hurt" and one of them - Tom Hoskins - tracked him down by using geographical clues embedded in the song, "Avalon Blues."  What followed was a groundswell of youth-driven popularity, buoyed by college performances, new recordings, and a stint at the Newport Folk Festival.  Thank God for small miracles.  The music Hurt left behind is unique and wonderful.  His self-taught finger-picking style - often imitated, never duplicated - is deceptively simple.  If you're not concentrating you might walk away believing there are two guitars in the room.  But there aren't.  Just a man, two agile hands, and a seemingly effortless technique honed over decades of playing the guitar not as a vocation, but as an avocation.  As a musician, he just loves it.  And as a listener, you can tell.  If there is any criticism to be levied against this album, it might be that the material itself is not worthy of his attention.  Yes, there's "Stagolee" and "Since I've Laid My Burden Down," but most of the others here could be considered "minor" blues and folk tunes, by comparison.  The album is bookended by two gospel-themed compositions with a third, "Wise & Foolish Virgins," coming in nearly halfway through.  The rest of the songs talk about livestock, dance parties, murderous gamblers, and cheating housewives ("the red rooster says, 'cock-a-doodle-doodle-doo' / the rich women say, 'any dude will do'") - typical fare of the rural blues.  Such is the degree of his skill, however, that the results are anything but typical.  Hurt takes average songs and transforms them into something transcendent, with the sacred and profane sitting side by side in perfect harmony.  You'll notice, when you listen, that many times he'll leave out words and even whole lines here and there, letting his lively, lyrical guitar finish the phrase for him.  This may come across as lazy or forgetful until you realize it's neither.  It is common for people to talk about a guitar player achieving proficiency when he can make the instrument "talk."  Hurt makes his guitar sing.  Grade: A+