Led Zeppelin - Blues (1970)

I'm sure that a lot of obsessive LZ fans will have made compilations of their favourite tracks into themed albums, and so it's now my turn. I'd always loved the two slow blues tracks from their first and third albums, and after I found a rare un-issued track from 1969 which was too good not to share I decided to compile an album of my favourite pure blues tracks from their early years. 'I Can't Quit You Baby' and 'You Shook Me' showed right from the start where their roots lay, and to mix it up a bit I've used a longer and more raw take of 'You Shook Me' for this album. 'Baby Come On Home' has a hint of R'n'B to it, it's still a great bluesy track which I've pieced together from two of the three takes which are out there, and it sounds pretty good to me. I've also patched the intro to 'Travelling Riverside Blues', which was only ever recorded for the BBC, and had an annoying fade-in at the beginning. This was one of many songs they recorded for the Beeb which never appeared on a studio album, despite being a superb take of the Robert Johnson original, and similarly, this remix by KLAPE of Buddy Guy's' 'Sitting And Thinking' was played live just the once in 1969, and also never made it into the studio. As this album is a mixture of studio recordings, radio sessions, out-takes and live tracks then hopefully it will be worth a listen for even the most seasoned Led Zep fan.   

Track listing

01 I Can't Quit You Baby
02 Bring It On Home
03 You Shook Me
04 Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
05 Baby Come On Home
06 Since I've Been Loving You 
07 Sitting And Thinking
08 Travelling Riverside Blues

Pat Travers - Blues (1994)

Pat Travers is a Canadian singer/guitarist, who made one of he best hard rock albums of the 70's with 'Makin' Magic'. Growing up in Toronto, he picked up the guitar at age 12, and began playing in bands in his early teens, and it was while playing in one of these, Merge, that he caught the attention of rock artist Ronnie Hawkins, who invited him to join his band. In his early twenties Travers moved to London and signed a recording contract with the Polydor label, and his eponymous debut album was released in 1976. It was classic hard rock of the period, with Travers' raucous vocals and raunchy guitar being ably backed by a driving rhythm section of bassist Peter 'Mars' Cowling and drummer Roy Dyke. Cowling would become a mainstay in Travers' band for several years, but Dyke was later replaced on the drum-stool by Nicko McBrain, who stayed for a few years before moving on to later find fame with Iron Maiden. 'Makin' Magic' was released the following year, which was my introduction to the band, and during 1977 Travers added a second guitarist, changed drummers twice, and by the time 'Heat in the Street' was released in 1978 had put together the Pat Travers Band. 
One of the highlights of 'Makin' Magic' was his cover of the blues classic 'Statesboro Blues', and as I've always felt that the blues gives guitarists room to produce some of their best work, I wondered if there were any other blues tracks on his albums that would go well with that one to make a purely blues album that I could enjoy. It turns out that there weren't actually that many from his early work, but I did find a few excellent tracks on albums from the 90's that I could add to them, and eventually came up with a quite superb 40 minute blues album from the band. He obviously has a love of the genre, as he's released two albums himself called 'Blues Tracks' (1992) and 'Blues Tracks 2' (1998), comprising new recordings of old blues songs, but I wanted to hear him at his peak in the 70's and 80's, along with those few songs from his return to form in the early 90's, and they make up a really outstanding blues-rock album. If you like this then do check out the two 'Blues Tracks' albums as they are well worth hearing.  

Track listing

01 Statesboro Blues (1977)
02 You Shouldn't Have Hurt Me (1994)
03 Too Cool Woman Blues (1993)
04 The Pain (1993)
05 This World We Live In (1994)
06 Born Under A Bad Sign (1980)
07 (I Just Want To) Live It My Way (1981)

Johnny Winter - Winter Blues (1969)

Johnny Winter is rightly regarded as one of the greatest blues guitarists of all time, but growing up in the 50's, being born in 1944, meant that he also loved rock 'n' roll, and this is evident on most of his albums, where he mixed the blues with rock 'n' roll classics such as 'Johnny B. Goode', 'Bonie Morone', and 'Riot In Cell Block #9'. His recording career began in 1959 at the age of fifteen, when his band Johnny and the Jammers released 'School Day Blues' on a Houston record label, and it was at this time that he saw performances by classic blues artists such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Bobby Bland. In the early days, Winter would sometimes sit in with Roy Head and the Traits when they performed in the Beaumont area, and in 1967 he recorded a single with the Traits, 'Tramp' / 'Parchman Farm'. In 1968, he released his first album 'The Progressive Blues Experiment', but his big break came in December 1968, when Mike Bloomfield invited him to sing and play a song during a Bloomfield and Al Kooper concert at the Fillmore East in New York City. Representatives of Columbia Records were at the concert, and when Winter played B.B. King's 'It's My Own Fault' to loud applause, it impressed them enough to offer him $600,00.00, reportedly the largest advance in the history of the recording industry, to sign to Columbia Records. 
Winter's first Columbia album, 'Johnny Winter', was released in 1969, and featured the same backing musicians with whom he had recorded 'The Progressive Blues Experiment', which was bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Uncle John Turner, along with his younger brother Edgar Winter on keyboards and saxophone. The album was a mixture of blues standards, rock 'n' roll songs, and some of Winter's own compositions, and was something of a success, leading to Imperial Records picking up 'The Progressive Blues Experiment' for a wider release. Winter's blues trio toured and performed at several rock festivals, including Woodstock in 1969, and with Edgar added as a full member of the group, Winter recorded his second Columbia album 'Second Winter', which was the same mix of rock and blues as the previous two, with this one featuring a couple of songs that later became staples of his live show, Chuck Berry's 'Johnny B. Goode' and Bob Dylan's 'Highway 61 Revisited'. 
While all three albums are great records, I'm not that keen on the rock 'n' roll stuff, and much prefer his blues recordings, and as well as covering the classics from Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and Leadbelly, he also wrote a lot of his own material. What I really wanted to hear was an album of Johnny Winter's own compositions purely in the blues style, so that's what we have here. It's drawn from his three albums from 1968 and 1969, and shows not only his skill on both electric and acoustic guitar, but also that he can pen a mean blues tune. All the tracks are the original recordings, apart from 'Dallas', which is a band recording instead of the solo acoustic take on 'Johnny Winter'. Winter was professionally active right up until the time of his death in Switzerland on July 16, 2014, when he was found dead in his hotel room two days after his last performance at the Cahors Blues Festival in France. The cause of Winter's death was not officially released.

Track listing

01 Mean Town Blues
02 Bad Luck And Trouble
03 Black Cat Bone
04 Leavin' Blues
05 I'm Yours And I'm Hers
06 Dallas
07 Leland Mississippi Blues
08 38, 32, 20
09 I Love Everybody
10 Low Down Gal Of Mine
11 Fast Life Rider
12 Kind Hearted Woman
13 Hustled Down In Texas

Eric Clapton - Back Yard Blues (1975)

'461 Ocean Boulevard' marked a triumphant return for Eric Clapton, being his first record release after recovering from a three-year addiction to heroin. His manager Robert Stigwood offered every assistance he could, giving Clapton time to write new songs and letting him hire the musicians he wanted for the recording, such as guest vocalist Yvonne Elliman and guitarist George Terry, as well as hiring him a house in Miami to stay in, at 461 Ocean Boulevard. Despite this, the finished album consisted almost entirely of covers, such as his hit rendition of Bob Marley's 'I Shot The Sheriff', with only 'Give Me Strength', 'Let It Grow' and 'Get Ready' (written with Elliman); being original compositions. The sessions yielded many more songs than were needed for the final track listing of the album, and some of these surfaced on the 2004 re-issue of the disc, with others later appearing on the 'Give Me Strength' deluxe edition. The following year Clapton released 'There's One In Every Crowd', which once again had a number of songs held back from the eventual release, and so by taking the best of both sessions we can build a third album that could have slotted easily between those two. The songs are mostly laid-back blues, and I've omitted some of the instrumental jams in favour of actual songs, as they seemed to have more focus. I was going to call the album something along the lines of 'In The Back Yard Of 461 Ocean Boulevard', to tie in with the cover that I'd made using the reverse of the gatefold sleeve of that record, but that was just too unwieldy, so it's become simply 'Back Yard Blues'.

Track listing

01 Ain't That Lovin' You
02 Getting Acquainted (Too Late)
03 Eric After Hours Blues
04 Please Be With Me
05 Lonesome Road Blues (Walkin' Down The Road)
06 Fools Like Me
07 Meet Me (Down At The Bottom)
08 I Found A Love
09 (When Things Go Wrong) It Hurts Me Too