This magnificent new 20-CD boxed set with its 534 tracks and an accompanying 360-page book traces the blues as recorded in Memphis and by Memphis-area musicians and singers. Starting a hundred years ago with WC Handy's tune Memphis Blues, this set includes classic blues, jug band blues and itinerant blues from the 1920s and '30s, the R&B bands and small combos of the 1940's and '50s, and the tougher blues styles recorded up to the close of the 1960's. The box presents the recorded Memphis Blues as defined by the performers and their recording companies during the years 1914 to 1969 the period when blues in its various forms was issued on single discs, 78 rpm and then 45 rpm, for consumption largely by the original audience - the people who listened on street corners, in juke joints, at local house parties, or in the bars, night clubs and theatres of Memphis. The box focuses on how each disc sat within the evolving picture, either contributing something new, reinforcing trends of the moment, or harking back to tradition. At least one side of every relevant 78 or 45 rpm disc issued during the period is included, showing off the Memphis blues as it was offered year on year by artists and record companies. Among the hundreds of performers included here are: W. C. Handy, Beale Street Frolic Orch, Memphis Jug Band, Memphis Stompers, Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers, Jim Jackson, Frank Stokes, Minnie Wallace, Robert Wilkins, Furry Lewis, Jed Davenport, Memphis Minnie, Kansas Joe, Fleming and Townsend, Jimmie Lunceford, Douglas Williams, Allen Shaw, Charlie Burse, James DeBerry, Buddy Doyle, Memphis Slim, Jack Kelly, Bukka White, Joe Hill Louis, Rufus Thomas, Al Jackson Band, Rosco Gordon, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, Bonita Cole and Bill Harvey, Ford Nelson, Willie Nix, Junior Parker, Harmonica Frank, James Cotton, Doctor Ross, Elvis Presley, Little Milton, Tuff Green, Willie Mitchell, Bobby Bland, Willie Cobbs, Albert King, Willie Sanders, Big Amos, Cliff Jackson, and finally, tracks by Ike and Tina Turner when she was on her way up but the blues on single discs was on the way out. Whatever your preferred type of blues, this set gives you the chance to discover or re-connect with every aspect of the recorded blues from Memphis the home of the blues.
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