Robert Jr. Lockwood is Robert Johnson's stepson and a renowned guitarist in his own right, and David "Honeyboy" Edwards played with Johnson and is still alive to tell about it. I listened to Honeyboy on the way home from the CD store, since it was the artist I knew the least about, but the plunky acoustic guitar and old-man-from-the-mountains blues voice indicated the high quality of my bounty.
Junior Kimbrough was a Mississippi juke joint proprietor and influential guitarist that rose to fame with Robert Palmer's "Deep Blues" documentary. Palmer produced All Night Long, Kimbrough's first album. He has a menacing drone to his guitar work and a whisp moaning vocal that issues out lyrics of frank and often shocking narratives, like the bit in "You Better Run" where a girl runs into his bar to get away from a boy after her.
Her: Mr. Kimbrough, he's got a knife. He's gonna rape me
Him: You can stay here, but that don't mean you ain't gettin' raped.
Her: Oh You don't gotta rape me, Cuz I love you.
I personally think Junior Kimbrough is the bomb, and my favorite blues artist right after John Lee Hooker.
This R.L. Burnside is the sketchiest of the batch, but I didn't have it and now I do. It's a somewhat ill-advised collaboration, remixes of his searing blues by Alec Empire and Beck's DJ Tom Rothrock, in an attempt to cash in on the fame garnered by Alabama3
(who's "Woke up This Morning" became the theme to The Sopranos years later).
This 1971 live-in -the-studio romp from John Lee Hooker, right at the height of his second bout of fame, is supposed to be brilliant though and will likely make up for any downfall R.L might exhibit. Added bonus is that the version I got is a cheap reissue on SpotLite records with the original cover surrounded by rainbow stripes and the jewel case is dirty and sooty because it was salvaged from a house fire.From the Exchange: Broadmoor Shopping center by the old movie theatre, 9812 Florida Blvd, Baton Rouge, LA 70815 (map)
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