Track Listing

1. I Can't Be Satisfied - Muddy Waters
2. Big Town Playboy - Johnny Jones
3. That's All Right - Jimmy Rogers
4. Long Distance Call - Muddy Waters
5. Sugar Mama - John Lee Hooker
6. Twenty-Four Hours - Eddie Boyd
7. Blues With a Feeling - Little Walter
8. I Just Want to Make Love to You - Muddy Waters
9. Reconsider Baby - Lowell Fulson
10. Eisenhower Blues - J.B. Lenoir
11. My Babe - Little Walter
12. I'm a Man - Bo Diddley
13. Don't Start Me to Talkin' - Sonny Boy Williamson
14. Smokestack Lightning - Howlin' Wolf
15. Twenty-Nine Ways to My Baby's Door - Willie Dixon
16. Rock Me - Muddy Waters

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #212072 in Music
• Released on: 1997-03-25
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

4½ stars - a great starting point for the curious
Opening with blues legend Muddy Waters' first hit, "I Can't Be Satisfied", "Chess Blues Classics: 1947 To 1956" collects 16 blues numbers from the late forties and early-to-mid fifties.

It doesn't offer anything of interest to the seasoned blues fan (who probably has all of this material already), but if you're a newcomer and would like to explore the world of classic Chicago blues, this CD is a really good place to do it.

The compilers have picked some great songs, particularly Sonny Boy Williamson II's superbly swaggering "Don't Start Me To Talkin'", Little Walter Jacobs version of "Blues With A Feeling", Muddy Waters' "I Just Want To Make Love To You", pianist Eddie Boyd's classic slow blues "Twenty-Four Hours", the thumping proto-rock of Bo Diddley's "I'm A Man", and the awesome Howlin' Wolf's eerie 1956 single "Smokestack Lightnin'".

This is prime rib; it's only a little slice of what Chess Records have to offer, but it gives you a very good idea of what you're in for if you decide to go down the blues road. In time you will probably want to go looking for albums by the individual artists, but until you do, "Chess Blues Classics" and its companion volume "Chess Blues Classics 1957-67" is as good a starting place as any, and better than most.
(If you're looking for your first blues purchase, you may also want to check out the excellent double-disc "Chess Blues Guitar".)

Traces the blues from the Delta to Chicago's South Side
Traces blues from the delta into the heart of Chicago. In the process, moves from something close to Alan Lomax folk archive to proto-rock and roll. First Muddy Waters (1948) is just him with a acoustic guitar (!). Recognizable urban blues does not appear until 1952 (Eddie Boyd). Settings at the beginning are spare to empty. They fill out progressively, presumably as Chess gains production skills. Stand-out: tr 14: Howlin' Wolf (passionate abandon; full spectrum of color in his voice). Excellent recording detail on cuts. [46:57]

A great, great blues collection
These may not be the 16 very best songs to come out on Chess records between 1947 and 1956 (where, for example, is Muddy Waters' "Rollin' Stone?"), but this disc is still a fine sampler of the legendary label's output, and one of the greatest collections of Chicago blues that money can buy. If nothing else, it should win over a few doubters- it's hard to imagine some of these songs changing at least a few hundred people's lives. Listen to the electrified, paranoid groove of Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightnin'," or the gin-soaked sneer of Muddy's "I Can't Be Satisfied." The brilliance of this set is that such beloved classics sit alongside such relatively obscure gems as Little Johnny Jones' swaggering "Big Town Playboy" and J.B. Lenoir's "Eisenhower Blues." It's all great music, and it belongs in the hands of everyone who doesn't already have all of these tracks.