Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Devil Got My Woman - Skip James
2. Cypress Grove Blues - Skip James
3. Cherry Hall Blues - Skip James
4. Illinois Blues - Skip James
5. Four O'Clock Blues - Skip James
6. Hard Luck Child - Skip James
7. Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues - Skip James
8. Yola My Blues Away - Skip James
9. Jesus Is a Mighty Good Leader - Skip James
10. Be Ready When He Comes - Skip James
11. Drunken Spree - Skip James
12. I'm So Glad - Skip James
13. Special Rider Blues - Skip James
14. How Long Buck - Skip James
15. Little Cow and Calf Is Gonna Die Blues - Skip James
16. What Am I to Do Blues - Skip James
17. 22-20 Blues - Skip James
18. If You Haven't Any Hay Get on Down the Road - Skip James
19. Walkin' Blues - Son House
20. My Black Mama, Pt. 1 - Son House
21. My Black Mama, Pt. 2 - Son House
22. Preachin' the Blues, Pt. 1 - Son House
23. Preachin' the Blues, Pt. 2 - Son House
24. Dry Spell Blues, Pt. 1 - Son House
25. Dry Spell Blues, Pt. 2 - Son House

Disc 2:

1. Levee Camp Blues - Son House
2. Government Fleet Blues - Son House
3. Walking Blues - Son House
4. Shetland Pony Blues - Son House
5. Fo' Clock Blues - Son House
6. Camp Hollers - Son House
7. Delta Blues - Son House
8. Special Rider Blues - Son House
9. Special Rider Blues - Son House
10. Low Down Dirty Dog Blues - Son House
11. Depot Blues - Son House
12. Key of Minor - Son House
13. American Defense - Son House
14. Am I Right or Wrong - Son House
15. Walking Blues - Son House
16. Country Farm Blues - Son House
17. Pony Blues - Son House
18. Jinx Blues, Pt. 1 - Son House
19. Jinx Blues, Pt. 2 - Son House

Disc 3:

1. New Frisco Train - Bukka White
2. Panama Limited - Bukka White
3. I Am in the Heavenly Way - Bukka White
4. Promise True and Grand - Bukka White
5. Pine Bluff, Arkansas - Bukka White
6. Shake 'Em on Down - Bukka White
7. Sic 'Em Dogs On - Bukka White
8. Po' Boy - Bukka White
9. Black Train - Bukka White
10. Strange Place Blues - Bukka White
11. When Can I Change My Clothes - Bukka White
12. Sleepy Man Blues - Bukka White
13. Parchman Farm Blues - Bukka White
14. Good Gin Blues - Bukka White
15. High Fever Blues - Bukka White
16. District Attorney Blues - Bukka White
17. Fixin' to Die Blues - Bukka White
18. Aberdeen Mississippi Blues - Bukka White
19. Bukka's Jitterbug Blues - Bukka White
20. Special Stream Line - Bukka White

Disc 4:

1. Cool Drink of Water Blues - Tommy Johnson
2. Big Road Blues - Tommy Johnson
3. Bye Bye Blues - Tommy Johnson
4. Maggie Campbell Blues - Tommy Johnson
5. Canned Heat Blues - Tommy Johnson
6. Lonesome Home Blues - Tommy Johnson
7. Lonesome Home Blues - Tommy Johnson
8. Big Fat Mama Blues - Tommy Johnson
9. I Wonder to Myself - Tommy Johnson
10. Slidin' Delta - Tommy Johnson
11. Lonesome Home Blues - Tommy Johnson
12. Black Mare Blues - Tommy Johnson,
13. Black Mare Blues - Tommy Johnson,
14. Ridin' Horse - Tommy Johnson
15. Alcohol and Jake Blues - Tommy Johnson

Disc 5:

1. Stranger Blues - Ishman Bracey
2. Saturday Blues - Ishman Bracey
3. Left Alone Blues - Ishman Bracey
4. Leavin' Town Blues - Ishman Bracey
5. Leavin' Town Blues - Ishman Bracey
6. Brown Mama Blues - Ishman Bracey
7. Brown Mama Blues - Ishman Bracey
8. Trouble Hearted Blues - Ishman Bracey
9. Trouble Hearted Blues - Ishman Bracey
10. Four Day Blues - Ishman Bracey
11. Four Day Blues - Ishman Bracey
12. Jake Liquor Blues - Ishman Bracey,
13. Family Stirving - Ishman Bracey,
14. Mobile Stomp - Ishman Bracey,
15. Farish Street Rag - Ishman Bracey,
16. Woman, Woman Blues - Ishman Bracey
17. Suitcase Full of Blues - Ishman Bracey
18. Bust Up Blues - Ishman Bracey,
19. Pay Me No Mind - Ishman Bracey,
20. Heavy Suitcase Blues - Ishman Bracey
21. Louisiana Bound - Ishman Bracey
22. Too Damp to Be Wet - Ishman Bracey
23. Where My Shoes At? - Ishman Bracey

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #146255 in Music
• Released on: 2003-09-23
• Number of discs: 5
• Formats: Box set, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: 1.06 pounds

Customer Reviews

The sun is shining in your backdoor today
This 5-disc boxset is a must-have for anyone who needs to upgrade (or hear for the first time) even just 2 of the artists included. Look at it like this, buying 2 single discs by any of these guys will put you between $25 and $30. The price for this entire set.

This is the complete pre-war recordings of Skip James, Son House, Bukka White, Tommy Johnson, and Ishman Bracey. In other words, included here is some of the best music America ever produced.

I will first say that in terms of Tommy, Son, Ishman, and Bukka, this is the best sonic quality in which I have heard them. The Documents and Sony/Columbia releases are not as good as this. Skip's stuff was released by Yazoo so if you have that and love it you may think you don't need this for Skip, which is fine though, because the 4 others still sound much better here.

Tommy in particular has never (at least beyond hearing his original sides, decades ago) sounded better, in my opinion. Honestly, I will probably always have a tough time deciphering alot of what he is saying, but I can make out alot more of it here than I ever could in the years I owned the Document disc. His guitar playing and tone sound better, fuller, also. I've appreciated Tommy more in the 4 months I've had this box than I did in the previous however many years I had the Document. I must mention that the one minor mistake of the box is on Tommy's disc. Boogaloosa Woman and Morning Prayer are in the opposite order listed on the cd. Not a big deal at all.

I was quite looking forward to the Bukka disc because previous to buying this box, I only had his Okeh and Vocalion stuff from 1937 and '40. All the earlier stuff was new to me. Having heard it all now, I think the Okeh '40 is his best. His guitar playing is fantastic during all eras, but I like his voice best in '40.

Ishman I was the least familiar with, only having heard some of his stuff at an acquaintances place, but never owning it or getting any repeated listenings of my own. There is some good and not so good stuff here, in my opinion. For me, the defining highlight of alot of Ishman's stuff is the mandolin playing of Charlie McCoy. He is captured louder, and has a much bigger presence with Ishman than he ever had with Tommy Johnson and it makes for a great overall sound.

After buying this in 2003 I checked to see what another site had to say about it, and they said it was great for the blues novice. Hogwash. Whether you never heard of any of these guys before, or have been listening to them since before I was born, this box is a fantastic deal and has great sound (by the standards of what one can reasonably expect when so much of the source material is from Paramounts). The richness and tone of the guitars and voices are there, but without the degree of noise-reduction that flattens the sound. This is an essential box set for any fan of pre-war blues.

Skip: The haunting ghost-voice of Mississippi. Son: All the fire & brimstone. Bukka: Groove-blues to shake your tail feathers to. Tommy: Drunken, languid pain. Ishman: Sometimes great, sometimes goofy.

Great Music, Bad Remastering
There's no denying that the music on these discs is fabulous (although Ishman Bracey is hardly of the same caliber as Skip James or Son House). No, the problem with these discs (and JSP discs generally) is that the sound quality is terrible. Obviously any CDs made from old 78s are going to have loud hiss and pops. That's to be expected. What's terrible here is that JSP's solution has, from the sound of it, been to lop off the higher end of the sound, with the result that everything sounds muffled and distant. It's as though they'd put a heavy blanket over your speakers. I prefer Yazoo's method, which has more hiss and other noise, but infinitely more clarity and presence. The difference between JSP's version of Booker T. ("Bukka") White and Yazoo's is like night and day: you'd never know what a subtle vocalist and guitarist he actually was if all you heard were the versions on these discs. It's even worse with the great Skip James, since in his case the originals are in really bad shape: if you're not careful (and JSP is not), you end up with mud instead of genius. In short, the remastering has real consequences for what you can hear of the music. All the nuance is absent on these discs. Get the Yazoo or the Biograph or the Roots-n-Blues ones instead: you'll have more background noise, but you'll also know why people rave over these musicians in the first place.

my search is over !!!!!!!!!!!
I have owned many different cd copies of each of these artists on various labels, yazoo, document, ect., but none come close in terms of the sound quality ! I know this can be a very subjective issue, bbut believe me i have been listnening to this music four years and i feel as if im hearing the music anew !so dont just sit there shake your moneymaker on down to the record shop and score yourself a copy, and at this price the music wont be the only thing that makes you smile !