This is the first of two albums originally recorded while Williamson was on tour of Europe in 1963. The other was a sort of unplugged album before it's time, with just Williamson on vocals and harmonica and M. T. Murphy on acoustic guitar; on this one he's joined again by Murphy plus drummer Billie Stepney and a superb, albeit uncredited, pianist. Some of the performances, including the wry and funny "Movin' Down the River Rhine" feature just Williamson himself, reminding you once again just how much music it's possible to get out of an unamplifed harmonica and a tapping foot. The album has been edited so that Williamson's off-hand, almost stream-of-consciousness narrative ramblings provide weirdly effective segues between songs…

Sonny Boy Williamson was, in many ways, the ultimate blues legend. By the time of his death in 1965, he had been around long enough to have played with Robert Johnson at the start of his career and Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Robbie Robertson at the end of it. In between, he drank a lot of whiskey, hobo'ed around the country, had a successful radio show for 15 years, toured Europe to great acclaim, and simply wrote, played, and sang some of the greatest blues ever etched into Black phonograph records. His delivery was sly, evil and world-weary, while his harp-playing was full of short, rhythmic bursts one minute and powerful, impassioned blowing the next. His songs were chock-full of mordant wit, with largely autobiographical lyrics that hold up to the scrutiny of the printed page. Though he took his name from another well-known harmonica player, no one really sounded like him.

This album by the Rice Miller fellow who called himself Sonny Boy Williamson - in other words, the Mississippi harmonica player rather than the Tennessee harmonica player - may have been one of the best volumes in the grim-looking series of single-album reissues and collections Chess put out before switching to double-album sets. Those who enjoy both blues and the film noir style will enjoy the graphic design of these albums, which often sported singularly unattractive photography of the artists. The grainy, out-of-focus picture of Williamson that fills this front cover is no exception; in fact, in a way, it established the rule. It isn't that he looks mean, he just looks like he could care less. Such a look of indifference has perhaps never before been captured by the camera…

While some hardliners will point to his early 1950s Trumpet recordings as his most undiluted work, Sonny Boy's tenure at Chess Records was his longest and most successful and therefore deserves first look for the novice coming to this remarkable bluesman at ground level. This 20-track collection takes 17 tracks from the excellent two-disc Essential Sonny Boy Williamson collection and adds "Sad To Be Alone," "My Younger Days" and an alternate session-second version of "One Way Out" with Buddy Guy on guitar (yes, this is the version that the Allman Brothers used as the blueprint for their cover version) to the final mix. This is another entry into MCA's Chess 50th Anniversary Series and the digital transfers here are exemplary, making this an automatic audio upgrade for those who already have this material in their collection.