Seventy four tracks is an awful lot to sift through. It helps that this is laid out in chronological order. It’s a little like a history lesson but you can almost hear the blues developing as a genre as you work your way through the box set.
You can hear how John Lee’s voice deepens as you work your way through the 4 CD box set. For once it’s all about the songs and not the production. These early ’40s and ’50s recordings stand on their own without any studio techniques or cleanups.
The pace picks up as we enter into the 70s. The guitar picking here is superb, with the rhythm being kept by the strings alone. I’d normally swerve any 4 CD box set but this is worthy of repeated plays.
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