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Incorporated sideman Graham Bond, Zoot Money and early John Mayall. Also we have a couple of

     blues tracks by Davy Graham featuring his guitar and vocals with minimal bass and drum backing.
     We also get records by visiting American blues singers Otis Spann and Champion Jack Dupree,
     (both with Eric Clapton on guitar), Eddie Boyd (with Peter Green on guitar), Mae Mercer and Curtis
     Jones.



     The later sixties tracks include John Mayall (with Clapton and also Peter Green), Savoy Brown, Ten
     Years After and the Keef Hartley Band. There are also a number of rare oddities here, Rod Stewart’s
     ‘Good Morning Little School Girl’ from 1964, from Sheffield Dave Berry’s version of ‘Hoochie
     Coochie Man’, from Liverpool Steve Aldo with Jimmy Reed's ‘Baby What You Want Me To Do’ and
     from Wales Amen Corner (with Andy Fairweather Low) covering Nina Simone's  ‘Gin House Blues’.
     We also get two Peter Green instrumentals ‘Greeny’ and ‘Curly’ both backed up by the current
     Bluesbreakers and ‘Out of Reach’ which features Peter on both guitar and vocals.



     There are some great tracks here—for me both Clapton and Peter Green's guitar playing during this
     period was exemplary and this compilation includes some lesser-heard examples—we also get to
     see how the music developed from its beginnings with Alexis Korner and there are also some
     interesting rarities. However, limiting the tracks to just the Decca/Deram labels obviously

     decreases the scope of the compilation and the exclusion of the Stones seems a strange choice as
     they were the leading and easily the most popular blues act of the early sixties—I can only think
     this is to do with licensing issues.  Click here for track list.


     Graham Harrison


                                          John Primer and Bob Corritore  The Gypsy Woman Told Me

                                          Vizztone Label  ASIN: B084Z5BGR4


                                          This is the third collaboration between these two—Chicago blues
                                          veteran guitarist Primer and Phoenix-based harp player Corritore
                                          —and like its predecessors it is very authentic sounding Chicago

                                          blues, as you'd expect from Mr. Primer, an ex-sideman with
                                          Muddy Waters, Junior Wells and Magic Slim, indeed the album is
                                          named after the Muddy Waters track ‘The Gypsy Woman Told
                                          Me’. The album was recorded in 2018 and 2019 in various places
                                          with various personnel and produced by Corritore, Clarke Rigsby,
     and Kid Andersen. The band includes guitarists Jimi Smith and Billy Flynn, pianist Bob Welch and

     Andersen on organ (!), three bassists—Kedar Roy, Mike Hightower and Troy Sandow; and two
     drummers—June Core and Brian Fahey.


     We begin with Chick Willis’ ‘Keep-A-Driving’, a lovely shuffle in typical Chicago blues ‘ensemble’
     style, while ‘Knocking on Your Door’ picks up the pace with Bob’s distorted harp driving the track
     along. ‘Gambling Blues’ (one of my favourites) is just John and Bob with a more country sound that

     reminded me of John Lee Hooker. ‘Little Bitty Woman’ is a rocking Primer original and features
     John on slide, it reminded me of Junior Parker’s 'Love My Baby' and features great piano from Bob
     Welch, while Little Milton's 'Walking the Back Streets and Crying' is a slow blues with more nice
     piano. It’s not all old classic blues though, 'I Got the Same Old Blues' is the J.J. Cale song which John
     and Bob bring new life to adding a bit of Chicago grit to Mr. Cale’s normally laid-back groove and
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