Charley Patton lived only into his 40s, but he left a large body of recorded work, which reveals a broad repertoire, much self-written. He came to his first recording session - in June 1929, for Paramount - with an established reputation. It was said his voice could be heard 500 yards away. The songs he recorded that day include some he had been honing for 20 years around the Delta. Pony Blues is usually cited as a masterpiece. He cut two versions. Both are good, the first is finer: he growls the lyrics, his guitar lopes and bucks. Patton's rhythms are one of his trademarks - complex, intricate, powerful, his fingering always precise. Listen to his playing on Down The Dirt Road Blues - he puts brilliant guitar phrases at the end of each stanza. Songs like Banty Rooster, with its beautiful slide work, and the idiosyncratic Spoonful represent the essence of Mississippi blues and are typical of Patton fast-and-loose approach to blues structures (there's not a standard 12-bar in Patton's recorded output) and rhythmic conventions. Even those who have studied Patton's lyrics find areas to dispute. The voice is gruff, the phrasing eccentric and his Mississippi accent can be impenetrable. But it's worth paying attention - Patton's songs evoke a world that has vanished.

In 1959, John Lee Hooker signed a one-off deal with the Riverside label to record an acoustic session of the country blues. It was a key change from his earlier recordings, most of which had featured Hooker on an electric guitar with his trademark reverb and stomping foot. Folk purists of the day were delighted with COUNTRY BLUES, believing Hooker had returned to his roots, leaving the "glitzy commercialism" of R&B behind. But some Hooker fans considered COUNTRY BLUES a "betrayal" of his true sound.