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 4 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.
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