Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey

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Various Artists

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All this quibbling about the depth of the set...blah,blah,blah. It is easy to tear apart this set, after all like most of his generation Scorsese is really a blues lover through the blues based rock of the sixties. In fact many of the originals in this set were rerecorded by sixties bands. Nothing wrong with that, but I too would like to have seen less of the rock based disc four and five stuff (c'mon the Thuderbirds' "tuff enuff" poorest selection on the whole set). But frankly I am just happy that a major figure in the entertainment industry besides Eric Clapton is giving the blues some much needed exposure. We can only hope this series and set inspires some youngster to participate in this dying art form. When was the last time you were able to enjoy a live performance by a true master of boogie woogie piano (i.e. Pinetop Perkins)? Been a long time I'd bet. BTW...where's Meade Lux Lewis? ooops, not there.

I am a very long time blues lover of every style and like any longtime blues fan, I already have every recording on this set. I still bought it anyway: 1. I support keeping the blues alive. 2. It is a very nice set covering a lot of ground, anymore discs would have made this set prohibitively expensive to the casual blues fan. 3. Rare and unreleased recordings would never have appeal to the afore mentioned consumer. Remember these sets are created to make money, not appease the hard core blues fans. 4. You can never please all the people all the time. More of the masters of the eighty eight's would have been nice but piano dosen't sell anymore. There are some nice style specific discs released as part of the series, some of which I will surely buy. 5. I support keeping the blues alive.

Lastly, like some else mentioned, just enjoy the danged music. It is a decent blues survey of the last 80 plus years. It is all 100% better then anything on FM radio.

A music fan chides outfidel for giving only one star to this blues survey through a prism of rock music yet gives this disc five stars despite its lack of Piedmont blues and other omissions. You cannot have the best survey of blues and focus on the delta but mostly ignore other early blues traditions. I did locate a copy of this at a local store since there are no track listings here. Major figures like Big Maybelle, and Johnny Guitar Watson are omitted for non-classic performances by copyists and popularizers such as John Mayall with Eric Clapton, Paul Butterfield, Jeff Beck and Susan Tedeschi. Where is Joe Louis Walker or Lucky Peterson or Wolfman Washington. And if we are going to include blues-rock, where is Ornette Coleman or Charles Mingus. Even moreso than the Rhino Blues Masters series, selection of performers must have been chosen for marketing purposes as this will be heavily hawked by PBS stations and stores. As a survey of blues music from its beginnings to the present, this is far less satisfactory than the discs that accompanied Ken Burns PBS series of last year. I have no doubts that this is wonderfully packaged as a music fan states, but given some major omissions and some questionable inclusions of nonclassic tracks, mr outfidel's comments are justified. I was tempted to give this two stars but my quick survey at the store of the first three discs particularly indicates that there was promise here that was unfulfilled. Try to get the two box sets that the Smithsonian put out for the best overview of the history of the blues