Track Listing

1. Sitting on Top of the World - Howlin' Wolf
2. Fattening Frogs for Snakes - Sonny Boy Williamson
3. Key to the Highway - Little Walter
4. Take the Bitter With the Sweet - Muddy Waters
5. Spoonful - Howlin' Wolf
6. So Many Roads, So Many Trains - Otis Rush
7. Madison Blues - Elmore James
8. Red Rooster - Howlin' Wolf
9. You Shook Me - Muddy Waters
10. Help Me - Sonny Boy Williamson
11. Baby, What You Want Me to Do [Live] - Etta James
12. My Time After Awhile - Buddy Guy
13. We're Gonna Make It - Little Milton
14. I Got What It Takes - Koko Taylor
15. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer - John Lee Hooker
16. I'd Rather Go Blind - Etta James

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42359 in Music
• Released on: 1997-03-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Customer Reviews

Track list with accurate credits
Amazon has inserted songwriter names into the track list rather than performer names. Here is how it should read:

1. Sitting on Top of the World - Howlin' Wolf
2. Fattening Frogs for Snakes - Sonny Boy Williamson
3. Key to the Highway - Little Walter
4. Take the Bitter With the Sweet - Muddy Waters
5. Spoonful - Howlin' Wolf
6. So Many Roads, So Many Trains - Otis Rush
7. Madison Blues - Elmore James
8. The Red Rooster - Howlin' Wolf
9. You Shook Me - Muddy Waters
10. Help Me - Sonny Boy Williamson
11. Baby, What You Want Me to Do (live) - Etta James
12. My Time After a While - Buddy Guy
13. We're Gonna Make It - Little Milton
14. I Got What It Takes - Koko Taylor
15. One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer - John Lee Hooker
16. I'd Rather Go Blind - Etta James

Teasin' Pleaser....
The Chess Blues Classics. Bellisimo, Baby. Great for an intro to the Chicago style post-Delta electric blues music--heck, this is great even if you're a longtime fan. This chronicles Chess Records move to their Michigan Ave. digs and the consolidating of some of their satellite small record companies into one big happy homestead. Bass man extraordinaire Willie Dixon becomes the Chess A & R man, and these Blues? They wail, Man, they wail! Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy, Howlin', Etta, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy!!!! When the Buddy Guy track comes on, you notice how much smoother the recording technology, hence, the Blues itself, becomes. A Little Milton cut has sessionmen Charles Stepney on piano and Maurice White on drums. Etta James house rocks a live audience in Nashville. Willie gives a tune to KoKo Taylor. And Hooker does the Last Call...will you love this? Do you have to ask?

When Blues Was The Dues
I have recently done a few commentaries on the legendary Sun Records label that produced more than its share of both black blues and white rockabilly stars as well as a galaxy of early rock and roll idols and classic songs. If one were to ask what other record company might have had such influence in those days that natural response should be Chicago's Chess Records that caught many of the black blues artists as they headed North to reach their own stardom once the limits of what Memphis had to offer a black recording artist gave out. This album is a 50th Anniversary tribute to many of those who made stardom or, at least, were one-shot johnnies (and janes) on that label from 1957-67.

No Chess Record tribute can be complete, can moreover even be considered as such, unless the name Howlin' Wolf is mentioned. He is represented here by one of the all time great blues songs (and maybe rock and roll as well) Little Red Rooster (as well as Sitting on Top of The World). I know I flipped out the first time I heard it covered by Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones in the early 1960's. When I heard the Wolf do it I went crazy. Others who stand out here are a litany of blues greats- Etta James, Koko Taylor, Elmore James and on and on. But here is the tip of the day. What you are getting this for is the Wolf's Little Red Rooster (okay, maybe also for Elmores's Madison Blues) and that is just fine.