Almost went with the double-disc The Ultimate Collection from Rhino, but Christgau, who has better blues ears than I do, gave it an A minus. I'm not going to spring for a double-disc best-of at that grade unheard (it's not on Spotify). I'm essentially throwing up my hands and giving up with this artist and stopping with this single-disc collection. His discography is a total mess. Hooker is a quadruple-disc set, which is just too much for a single artist, unless you're James Brown or someone of that stature. Of course, if I can ever play the whole thing (not all tracks are on Spotify), I will do so, and perhaps change my mind, but I would certainly never buy a monster like that without hearing it first. The single-disc Definitive is also an option. It has four more tracks than this, and came out about 11 years later, so presumably has some later work too, but I'm not sure that's a good thing. Anyway, I wish there was a good double-disc option out there, but I guess not. Again, with Ultimate, there's no way to hear it first, and not being a blues fanatic (especially not a solo blues guitar fanatic, which alot of his work apparently is), I think I'm going to just stick with this.
No comments:
Post a Comment