From the looping melodies of Othar Turner’s fife through to the haunting slide of Blind Willie Johnson’s Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground and Son House’s crackling 1930 recording of Preachin’ The Blues, the first CD of Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues sets the tone for what is to come in this beautifully compiled box set.
What’s to come is good.
Scorsese takes you on a journey through Five CDs with just over 100 songs from about as many different artists, charting the history of the blues from the genre’s earliest recordings up to modern day blues men and women like Keb’ Mo’ and Bonnie Raitt.
It is a journey well worth the fare.
Feeling, Sweet Feeling
Scorsese’s collection reveals a genre that is more than just a refuge for the depressed and broken hearted, as the blues is often portrayed.
Dylan’s hip Highway 61 Revisited with its crazed instruments and beat lyrics, Lonnie Johnson’s bopping Guitar Blues, or Louis Jordan’s upbeat and humorous Let The Good Times Roll are all proof of the blues’ diversity.
In fact, whether it be Hendrix bemoaning his lost love in Red House before turning his attention to her sister, or Big Mama Thornton growling through her missing teeth as she tears into her hound dog, this collection oozes feeling that at turns can make you feel like weeping or feel like jumping up and down.
Before Rock ‘n’ Roll
While some of the songs in this compilation, notably Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Gooode, will be familiar to both blues enthusiasts and blues newcomers alike, Scorsese pulls a masterstroke by including several original blues recordings latterly made famous by the rock and rollers they inspired.
Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup’s rockabilly drive on That’s All right Mama and Big Mama Thornton’s Hound Dog testify to the blues’ influence on Elvis Presley. As does the inclusion of Presley’s pulsating 1955 cover of Junior Parker’s Mystery Train, pure blues pushed up a tempo and distorted by Elvis’ country vocals, but nonetheless blues to the core.
Among other influential gems is Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor featuring Hubert Sumlin’s tight lead guitar and Buddy Guy on rhythm, a song that would later make an appearance on Led Zeppelin’s second album as the seven-minute bass laden romp, The Lemon Song. Then there is Mississippi Fred McDowell’s evangelical acoustic piece, You Gotta’ Move, replete with hard slapping slides and McDowell’s satanic growls, which eclipses the 1972 cover by The Rolling Stones.