Taking his cues from the '70s output of Ry Cooder, there is nothing in the sound of the Dutch-born and raised Hans Theessink that would indicate he learned his craft from albums and not from being raised in the swamps of Mississippi. His dusky baritone, greasy slide licks, and soulful male backup singers (led by Cooder vet Terry Evans who turns in a stunning performance throughout) plant him firmly into the deep South. The gospel feel of the title track, along with its subtle shuffle beat and rousing yet mellifluous supporting vocalists, sounds as natural as if he spent his entire life soaking up the spirits of the bluesmen he obviously adores. When he and the elegant singers harmonize on "Set Me Free," with pedal steel crying and longtime cohort John Sass' tuba counterpointing the bass, you can almost feel the flies buzzing around your head as you sit beside the banks of the mighty Mississippi…

There's no shortage of Lightnin' Hopkins compilations out there, and Short Haired Woman is only distinguished by its relatively good sound quality - not a surprise since everything here was professionally recorded in the years 1946-1949 - and decent if superficial annotation, giving a general overview of the man's career. There's no particular order, either, though the makers have placed Hopkins' solo sides ahead of his somewhat earlier sides with Thunder Smith. In a way, they've saved the best for last, in that those sides tend to feature flashier playing and a bolder, less subdued singing style and selection of material, while the later sides show a more studied, subtly sophisticated sound…

Lightnin' Hopkins originally recorded the ten tracks that make up Free Form Patterns on February 1, 1968, for the International Artists label. Also on that label's roster was the psychedelic group 13th Floor Elevators, which, by 1968, had basically disbanded. For this session, producer Lelan Rogers (Kenny's brother) teamed Hopkins up with Elevators drummer Danny Thomas and bassist Duke Davis. While not as revolutionary as John Lee Hooker's sessions with Canned Heat, Free Form Patterns steers clear of the late-'60s psychedelic trappings that screwed up such similar sessions as Electric Mud. No one tried to bend Hopkins to fit a foreign musical approach on Free Form Patterns; he made the music bend to him.

Why they kept these 19 recordings locked up in some vault for 40 years is beyond comprehension. A chunk of the Live at Sugar Hill material – recorded at a club in the Bay Area – was issued by Fantasy as Boogie Chillun on LP in 1972. It is available on CD minus one track under the same title. As good as that material was, these tracks from the very same gig are hands down some of the sexiest, deepest blues John Lee Hooker ever recorded – and that's saying something. Accompanied only by his hollow-bodied electric guitar and his foot on the floor, Hooker takes listeners through a performance so intimate that you wonder if there was an audience present – there is clapping, but not much. Versions of "Crawling King Snake," "Bottle Up and Go," "Let's Get It," "Jelly Jelly," "What's the Matter Baby," "You Don't Miss Your Water," "I Can't Hold On," and others get perhaps their definitive versions here. The opening track, "You Torture My Soul," is one of Hooker's most poignant moments, full of venom and vulnerability. In addition to the stellar performances, Hooker's guitar playing here is perhaps the finest of his career

Drawing on over 30 years of experience playing the country-blues, complete with tutorials from some of the undisputed masters, it comes as no surprise that Stefan Grossman can so consistently conjure up the authentic spirit of the music with each successive release. His original compositions show Grossman to be the most confident of guitarists in his genre, effortlessly borrowing from the stylings of Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis, and Blind Willie McTell among various others. While his playing isn't overly flashy, it need not be. The precision and craftsmanship injected into the fluid, rolling original "Yazoo Strut," the harder blues groove of "Spider Web Blues," and a powerful rendition of Reverend Gary Davis' "Candy Man" are country blues at its very best.

Well, complete as far as his pre-war country blues waxings for OKeh sans Sonny Terry (except for one or two where the whooping harpist provided accompaniment). McGhee was working firmly in the Piedmont tradition by 1940, when he signed with OKeh and began cutting the 47 enlightening sides here, which represent some of the purest country blues he ever committed to posterity.

Like her signature song "Ode to Billie Joe," Bobbie Gentry is an enigma by choice. "Ode to Billie Joe" deliberately leaves out details that would spell out the story and Gentry removed herself from public view sometime in the late '70s for reasons that have never been fully disclosed. Many have tried to track her down because her cult not only persisted into the 21st century, it even grew – so much so that an observer would be forgiven if they believed Gentry was something of an outsider artist instead of a mainstay on television who hosted a variety show of her own…

Groundbreaking guitar work of dazzling complexity that never fails to amaze - and this stuff was cut in the 1920s! Lonnie Johnson's astonishingly fluid guitar work was massively influential (Robert Johnson, for one, was greatly swayed by his waxings), and his no-nonsense vocals (frequently laced with threats of violence - "Got the Blues for Murder Only" and "She's Making Whoopee in Hell Tonight" are prime examples on this 19-cut collection) are scarcely less impressive. Johnson's torrid guitar duets with jazzman Eddie Lang retain their sense of legend over nine decades after they were cut.

Memphis Minnie held her own in a genre famous for its casualties, and as a blues guitarist, few players in the 1920s could cut her, and that, coupled with Minnie's natural showmanship and a penchant for marrying her guitar duet partners (Casey Bill Weldon, Kansas Joe McCoy, Ernest Lawlars), makes her one of the most colorful figures in blues history. This set brings together key tracks that she recorded for Columbia Records between 1933 and 1937, but it's just a small part of this musician's prolific recording catalog (she also recorded for the Bluebird, OKeh, Vocalion, Regal, Checker, and JOB imprints during her four-decade career). The sound is good, though, which makes this a nice place to start.

Señor Blues is one of Taj Mahal's best latter-day albums, a rollicking journey through classic blues styles performed with contemporary energy and flair. There's everything from country-blues to jazzy uptown blues on Señor Blues, and Taj hits all of areas in between, including R&B and soul. Stylistically, it's similar to most of his albums, but he's rarely been as effortlessly fun and infectious as he is here.

Eric Bibb's version of the blues is calm, wise, hushed, and elegant, as much or more about redemption as it is about despair, and above all, Bibb sees the blues as narrative, part of the story we all drift through. His best songs, often built on traditional patterns and rhythms, are wise and affirming, and they fall to the brighter and more hopeful side of the blues. There are several such gems on Deeper in the Well, including the opening track, a delightful piece of Louisiana shuffle funk called "Bayou Belle," the string band gospel bounce of "Dig a Little Deeper in the Well," a modal and relentlessly driving "Boll Weevil," "Sittin' in a Hotel Room," which is a wise and hopeful story of contentment, and the final track, a stunningly beautiful banjo version of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'." It all adds up to a beautifully redemptive album, one of Bibb's best.

The Lovin' Spoonful is an American rock band which was popular during the mid- to late-1960s. Founded in New York City in 1965 by lead singer/songwriter John Sebastian and guitarist Zal Yanovsky, it is best known for a number of hits which include "Summer in the City", "Do You Believe In Magic", "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?", and "Daydream". The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000…

Recorded live in November 1962 in San Francisco, this dates from the period in which Hooker often presented himself as a sort of blues/folk singer for the coffeehouse crowd, toning down his volume and aggressiveness somewhat. There's something of a muted "unplugged" feel to these solo performances (though an electric guitar is used). It's not ineffective, though not among his best work; it's the kind of Hooker you might want to put on past midnight, just before going to sleep. Hooker's never been bashful about recycling songs, and "Boogie Chillun" appears here in one of its many versions, as does "Dimples" (retitled as "I Like to See You Walk"). He also tackles the rock/soul standard "Money," changing the title to "I Need Some Money," for which he also somehow gets awarded the songwriting credit on the sleeve.

On this recording, Burnside presents the blues in its original and purest form. His music is not very different from the Southern blues of the 1900s. Five songs from this recording, ‘Jumper hanging on the line’, ‘Long-Haired Doney’, ‘Poor Black Mattie’, ‘Catfish Blues’ and ‘Rolling and Tumbling’, are versions of traditional blues pieces that are known to everyone in the State of Mississippi. These songs date from before the blues structures with standardised texts and harmonies; they are close to the ‘hollers’ and the vocal line is supported by the repetition of the musical phrase on the guitar. The other songs are adaptations, by Burnside himself, of hits of the 1950s. Other blues artists from Mississippi and Texas perform these songs: Robert Nighthawk, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Elmore James and John Lee Hooker…