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    • Box of the Blues

    08/26/2003 | Rounder / Umgd 

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      BOX OF THE BLUES / VARIOUS (BOX)

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    All Music Guide Review

    Rounder's four-CD Box of the Blues is, by looking at its inclusion of tracks, seemingly an ambitious proposition. But looks can be deceiving. Compiled and introduced by vice president of A&R Scott Billington -- a man whose credentials, when it comes to fighting for and preserving blues traditions, are unassailable -- these discs become a kind of theme-oriented blur of Rounder's substantial catalog holdings. Billington's schemata are quirky, sometimes ironic, and sometimes downright scary and profound as the set's first and second discs' "61 Highway" and "One More Mile" attest. The first CD concentrates its energies on the revelation of blues as it came up from the Mississippi Delta in the music of Fred McDowell, Johnny Shines, Etta Baker, Blind Willie McTell, John Hurt, and others and mutated up north to Chicago with Otis Spann, Robert Nighthawk, and others. On disc two, the blues becomes a more regional concern as expressed by everyone from Gatemouth Brown to Jack Dupree to Willie Cobbs and J.B. Hutto. Texas and News Orleans are prominently featured. And disc four, being a mishmash of current styles, has its merits even if the strategy is hard to decipher -- perhaps it is only that Billington put his favorite cuts on the disc, which would make it plenty valid even if it is a careening listen. But "Change in the Pocket" is erratic in its presentations of traditional purveyors of the music from George Thorogood and Corey Harris to the Tarbox Ramblers and Roomful of Blues. Here everything feels willy-nilly and reeks of some kind of revisionism. But still, three out of four isn't bad and the price is right, too. This is no Grammy-deserving compilation, but there are some amazing things on it -- even if it feels like Rounder patting itself on the back and trying to cash in on Martin Scorsese's Presents the Blues series on PBS. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

    Track Listing

  • Track#
  • Title
  • Artist
  • time
  • 1
  • 61 Highway
  • McDowell, Mississippi Fred
  • 3:11

  • 2
  • See See Rider
  • 2:53

  • 3
  • I Could Hear My Name A-Ringin'
  • 3:39

  • 4
  • Cheating and Lying Blues
  • Nighthawk, Robert
  • 4:58

  • 5
  • Lonesome Whistle
  • 3:45

  • 6
  • Broken Hearted Blues
  • Baker, Etta
  • 4:52

  • 7
  • I'm Gonna Make You Happy
  • Brown, Buster
  • 3:35

  • 8
  • Dooleyville Blues
  • Webb, Boogie Bill
  • 2:08

  • 9
  • One Kind Favor
  • Cephas & Wiggins
  • 2:55

  • 10
  • Blues for Martin Luther King
  • Spann, Otis
  • 3:39

  • 11
  • Wind Howlin' Blues
  • Edwards, David "Honeyboy"
  • 3:17

  • 12
  • Dying Crapshooter's Blues
  • McTell, Blind Willie
  • 3:10

  • 13
  • Screamin' and Cryin'
  • Williams, Big Joe
  • 3:17

  • 14
  • Candy Man
  • Hurt, Mississippi John
  • 2:58

  • 15
  • The Red Cross Store
  • 3:26

  • 16 (2)
  • One More Mile
  • Brown, Clarence [1] "Gatemouth"
  • 4:15

  • 17 (2)
  • My Eyes Keep Me in Trouble
  • 4:51

  • 18 (2)
  • Give Me Flowers While I'm Livin'
  • Dupree, Champion Jack
  • 5:00

  • 19 (2)
  • Cool Blues Walk
  • Clearwater, Eddy "The Chief"
  • 5:30

  • 20 (2)
  • Port Arthur Blues
  • Walker, Phillip
  • 4:36

  • 21 (2)
  • Nobody But You
  • Copeland, Johnny
  • 3:47

  • 22 (2)
  • Jukin'
  • Cobbs, Willie
  • 6:24

  • 23 (2)
  • Johnny's Jump
  • 2:21

  • 24 (2)
  • Goin' Out West, Pts. 1 and 2
  • Davis, Larry
  • 5:57

  • 25 (2)
  • Walking by Myself
  • 3:07

  • 26 (2)
  • Blues and My Guitar
  • Fulson, Lowell
  • 4:44

  • 27 (2)
  • Eighteen Year Old Girl
  • Hutto, J. B. & The New Hawks
  • 4:17

  • 28 (2)
  • I'm from Mississippi
  • Johnson, Luther "Guitar Junior" & The Magic Rockers
  • 4:54

  • 29 (2)
  • This Is the Blues
  • Lonesome Sundown
  • 2:41

  • 30 (2)
  • The Man from Mars
  • Wilson, Smokey
  • 5:44

  • 31 (3)
  • Change in My Pocket
  • Funderburgh, Anson & The Rockets
  • 2:54

  • 32 (3)
  • Blue House
  • Ball, Marcia
  • 3:27

  • 33 (3)
  • Meanest Woman
  • Muldaur, Geoff
  • 3:48

  • 34 (3)
  • Make Some Changes
  • Jones, Andrew "Jr. Boy"
  • 3:49

  • 35 (3)
  • Down South Blues
  • Tarbox Ramblers
  • 4:03

  • 36 (3)
  • How Long
  • Duarte, Chris Group
  • 5:20

  • 37 (3)
  • I'm the Toughest Girl Alive
  • Kane, Candy
  • 3:08

  • 38 (3)
  • Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning
  • Harris, Corey
  • 2:54

  • 39 (3)
  • Frankie and Albert
  • Block, Rory
  • 2:27

  • 40 (3)
  • What That Means to Me
  • Robillard, Duke And The Pleasure Kings
  • 2:51

  • 41 (3)
  • Let Me Live
  • Roomful Of Blues
  • 3:52

  • 42 (3)
  • Lovin' Someone Else
  • King, Little Jimmy And The Memphis Soul Survivors
  • 5:35

  • 43 (3)
  • John Hardy
  • Thorogood, George
  • 3:23

  • 44 (3)
  • One Night Affair
  • 5:38

  • 45 (3)
  • Shifting Sand
  • Wilson, Michelle
  • 4:41

  • 46 (4)
  • A Good Day for the Blues
  • Brown, Ruth
  • 4:35

  • 47 (4)
  • Outskirts of Town
  • Pickett, Wilson
  • 3:25

  • 48 (4)
  • Live and Let Live
  • 4:41

  • 49 (4)
  • Roadblock
  • Adams, Johnny
  • 4:51

  • 50 (4)
  • I Can Take You to Heaven Tonight
  • Clay, Otis
  • 4:37

  • 51 (4)
  • Got to Get Myself Some Money
  • Burke, Solomon
  • 4:58

  • 52 (4)
  • Nowhere to Hide
  • Kelly, Paul
  • 3:28

  • 53 (4)
  • What Can I Do (Somebody Tell Me)
  • Little Buster And The Soul Brothers
  • 3:58

  • 54 (4)
  • Two Wrongs
  • DeClouet, Theryl
  • 3:51

  • 55 (4)
  • I Stepped in Quicksand
  • Brown, Charles [1]
  • 5:27

  • 56 (4)
  • Ain't No Business Like Your Business
  • Peebles, Ann
  • 4:42

  • 57 (4)
  • Promised Land
  • Holmes Brothers
  • 3:36

  • 58 (4)
  • You Don't Know Nothin' About Love
  • 4:46

  • 59 (4)
  • Bring It on Home Daddy
  • Hawkins, Ted
  • 3:05

  • 60 (4)
  • Out of the Dark
  • Washington, Walter "Wolfman"
  • 5:54

  • Credits

    • Michael Toles
    • Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar, Guitar (Electric), Roland S555
    • Cano
    • Vocals (Background)
    • Ron Levy
    • Organ, Rhythm Arrangements, Horn Arrangements, Producer, Organ (Hammond), Leader, Arranger, Piano, Synthesizer


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