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Product Description
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Marion "Little Walter" Jacobs is perhaps the most influential harmonica player on contemporary blues, and his collection is a great place to start. He was trained by Muddy Waters, but brought a more swinging feel to blues. Muddy and his band accompany Little Walter on many hits, as do Robert "Jr." Lockwood, the Aces, and other Chicago greats. In the 1950s, Little Walter's popularity eclipsed even Waters', his style a little more relaxed and pop-oriented. Walter's versions of many songs are the standards: "Blues with a Feeling," "You're So Fine," "Juke." Great stuff. --Robert Gordon
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The best place to start for sure. ****½,
By
This review is from: His Best (Chess 50th Anniversary Collection) (Audio CD)
This is the best available single-disc overview of Little Walter Jacobs' career.
The highly renowned blues harmonica player was not a singer of the caliber of Muddy Waters, or a songwriter to rival Sonny Boy Williamson (II), but his recording career spanned some 20 years, and there are more than enough gems in his catalogue to fill this disc to the point of overflowing. "His Best" has the best sound currently available, and excellent liner notes, and while the double-disc "The Essential Little Walter" is more thorough, this is all that most listeners will need. A couple of great songs are missing, most notably Walter's gritty rendition of Willie Dixon's "Dead Presidents", but that's a minor quibble...almost all of Walter's best is here, and if you own MCA/Chess' excellent Willie Dixon-box set you already have "Dead Presidents". 1997's "His Best" takes the place of MCA/Chess' original 12-track LP "The Best Of Little Walter", a landmark blues album which had remained in print for over three decades. Here is his first hit single, the instrumental hit "Juke", as well as Walter's versions of Big Bill Broonzy's "Key To The Highway", Dixon's "My Babe", and T-Bone Walker's "Mean Old World" (shamelessly credited to Jacobs himself). And virtually all of Walter's best self-penned songs are here..."Blues With A Feeling", "Boom Boom, Out Goes The Light", "Tell Me Mama", and numerous often masterful instrumentals. This is certainly the place to start, the finest single-disc Little Walter-compilation on the market.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Top quality Blues,
This review is from: His Best (Chess 50th Anniversary Collection) (Audio CD)
Wow, Little Walter can do things with a harmonica that most can only dream of. Experts still aren't sure just how he achieved some of the sounds that he created with what is essentially a rather simple instrument.Mostly recording during the 50's, Little Walter was a pioneer in bringing electric amplification to the harmonica, and taking it a step further, much like Hendrix did with the guitar. Fans of Blues music will more than likely have other versions by other artists of the songs on the album, the majority of them being blues standards. But Walter brought a freshness and vibrancy to the sound at the time, that it still permeates through the music now, and his techniques are still to this day a mystery. Blues fans should definately own something by Little Walter in their collection, and this collection of his Chess recordings is an excellent choice. Track 7 "Blues with a feeling" has been covered by countless blues artists,and is a well recognised standard but just take a listen to this version. You'll see what I mean.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Genius,
This review is from: His Best (Chess 50th Anniversary Collection) (Audio CD)
This CD is the best place to start when looking to buy a Little Walter CD as it features 20 of the very best tracks that he recorded during his golden period with Chess in the 1950's when he chalked up hit after hit on the US r&b charts and the 20 tracks here are proof that Little Walter was (and still is) the finest blues harmonica player the world has ever seen.
From his first big hit `Juke' in 1952, the CD includes most of his big r&b hits including `Sad Hours', `Off The Wall', `My Babe' etc and some of the musicians that backed Walter here include legendary guitarist Jimmy Rogers, the excellent Otis Spann on piano, the great man Muddy Waters who plays slide guitar on one of Walter's most famous hits: `Key To The Highway' which is included here and the great songwriter and bass player Willie Dixon who plays bass on most of Little Walter's songs. Although it's impossible to include all of Little Walter's big hits and other famous songs on a 20 track album, I'm curious as to why `Oh Baby', `You Better Watch Yourself' and the incredible `Blue Light' haven't been included as these are 3 essentials, maybe Chess will release a volume 2 in this series as I've noticed they've done that with the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Chuck Berry in the same series.
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