Photographs by Design by Erin Norwood
1. Essential Delta Blues (Not Now). The title kinda’ says it all.
2. Pushin’ My Luck, Robert “Wolfman” Belfour (Fat Possum Records). The last, significant, culturally connected Hill Country bluesman.
3. She Ain’t None of Your’n, James “T-Model” Ford (Fat Possum Records). Arguably his best release.
4. Off Yonder Wall, The Jelly Roll Kings (Fat Possum Records). Three modern Mississippi blues masters.
5. This is the Blues, Charley Patton (Primo). Proves he deserves the title, “Father of the Delta Blues.”
6. Chess Blues Classics: 1957-1967 (Chess Records/MCA), various artists, is a well-sequenced set of awesome.
7. Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings/The Centennial Collection (Sony Legacy). Johnson continues to inspire musicians around the world.
8. The World Must Never Know, The Mississippi Marvel (Broke & Hungry Records). A church deacon who played jukes. Under his alias, this gloriously anonymous CD was born.
9. Mississippi Bluesmen (AAO Music), provides a general overview of Mississippi-born bluesmen from the 1930s to 1960s.
10. Mistakes Were Made: Five Years Of Raw Blues, Damaged Livers & Questionable Business Decisions (Broke & Hungry Records), captures the music of Mississippi’s surviving juke joint culture.
Roger Stolle owns Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Art, an award-winning blues store in Clarksdale. He is a Blues Music Magazine columnist, Juke Joint Festival co-founder, Hidden History of Mississippi Blues author and co-producer of blues film projects like M for Mississippi and Moonshine & Mojo Hands. www.cathead.biz
BY Roger Stolle
DESIGN Erin Norwood