Best Mississippi Delta Blues - Comparability with other country blues and early Chicago/Detroit blues/wherever is interesting

[Humberto]

Seemed the Delta blues moved up to Chicago and Detroit. Which in turn was electrified. And the Lord said it was good.

But:
Skip James
Robert Johnson

In the same universe?

 

[Humberto]

If I had Possession

 

[danny la rouge]

I’ve an old playlist I made of “Country blues”, which is a bit wider than Delta blues. But you may find it of interest.

 

[Knotted]

It looks like Spotify has made a blues list for me. Only about 1/3rd Mississippi but it looks good.

 

[Humberto]

There's an interesting thread running through with Howlin' Wolf. A Mississippi Delta blues face moving up to chicago and going electric. Good friends with Son House who is a bit of a progenitor/pioneer of blues and Mississippi Delta blues. I suppose that passionate singing and heavy riff based guitar sound.

It's rumoured Robert Johnson tried Chicago out with a band, though I'm not sure there's much in it.

This is a genuinely brilliant bit of footage of Howlin' Wolf, with initial camera focus on Son House. Looking dapper for sure.

Howlin' Wolf - Dust My Broom (Newport Blues Festival 1966)



Don't really know what I'm doing here though.

 

[Humberto]

This was his 'hit' selling 10,000 copies in 1937.

Robert Johnson - Terraplane Blues

 

[Humberto]

For those with a good ear or two and good headphones, there's all these little subtleties and treble flourishes that elevate a lot of Johnson's tracks. The crudeness/datedness (by modern standards) of the recordings makes them a little obscured, but they're there.

 

[Humberto]

Another Delta character was Big Joe Williams. He tuned his guitar to 9 strings. Anyway this is Mississippi:



And later Texas Blues covered it. It became a blues standard.

 

[Humberto]

If I had Possession

This purely leans on this from 8 years prior btw

Hambone Willie Newburn '29

 

[Humberto]

Son House - Walking Blues - 1930



Robert Johnson - Crossroad Blues -1936



Robert Johnson - Walking Blues - 1936

 

[Humberto]

Son House - Preaching Blues



Fucking Hell. Anyway Robert Johnson sat in the woods for a year practising guitar after Son House told him he was shit.

Came back:

 

[Humberto]

I mean Mississippi is roughly the same size as England:

Mississippi: 47,000 sq miles
England: 50,000 sq miles

Mississippi population: 3 million
England population: 56 million

So to travel around to areas and plantations was I imagine a sizeable voyage.