Search - Little Walter :: Blues with a Feeling: Chess Collectibles, Vol. 3

***1/2 A nice collection, but mostly for serious Walter fans

Docendo Discimus | Vita scholae | 06/20/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

""The Essential Little Walter" remains the ultimate Little Walter compilation, and since Little Walter Jacobs' recorded output didn't quite maintain a level of quality to match that of Muddy Waters', Sonny Boy Williamson's, or Howlin' Wolf's, most casual fans can skip this one without missing all that much.



But serious Walter-scholars will certainly want to give "Blues With A Feelin'" a second glance.

The third item in the "Chess Collectibles" series, it includes a lot of rare material, most of which has never before been released on CD. And several of these 40 cuts are previously unreleased in any format, not just in the US, but wordwide.



Opening with an alternate take of Walter's first hit, the instrumental "Juke", disc one includes previously unreleased versions of "Can't Hold Out Much Longer", "Blues With A Feeling", Charles Brown's "Driftin'", two tough, Walter-penned shuffle called "That's It" and "Fast Boogie", as well as the first-time US appearances of several songs including the up-tempo jump blues tunes "My Kind Of Baby" and "I Love You So", and an alternate "My Babe" titled "Mercy Babe".

And the 1955 singles "Can't Stop Lovin' You" and "Crazy For My Baby" make their album debut here (they were previously only released as singles), as does "Who" and the instrumental numbers "Flying Saucer" and "Teenage Beat".

"Crazy For My Baby" is a Willie Dixon-tune later recorded by Dixon himself, by the way, and it is one of the best songs on a disc with a lot of good stuff but not too many really great songs.



Disc two presents the same mix of obscure singles, rare import items, and unreased numbers, like the alternate takes of "Temperature", "Crazy Mixed Up World", and "You're Sweet" (all vocal performances, none of them particularly interesting).

Walter's rendition of Maceo Merriweather's "Worried Life Blues" is not too shabby...it makes its US album debut here, as does "Baby", which features some nice guitar playing by Luther Tucker, and the Otis Spann-backed singles "You Don't Know", "Break It Up" and "Me And Piney Brown". Muddy Waters plays slide guitar on the instrumental "Rock Bottom (alternate take)", and "I'm A Businessman" is a rather interesring Willie Dixon song played an all-star band which includes Buddy Guy, Lafayette Leake, saxist Donald Hawkins, and (unfortunately) organ player Billy Emerson. It's not Emerson's fault, but the Toys 'R' Us-like organ sounds horrible.



If you're a big fan of Walter and his chromatic harmonicas, you are sure to find something of interest on this collection...Little Walter and his harp take centre stage on almost every song, and even if his playing isn't always varied enough for these two discs to be listened to in one long sitting (that's right, I said it!), harmonica lovers should definitely check out "Blues With A Feelin'".

More casual blues fans will be better served by a collection of Walter's Chess hits, "His Best" or the excellent double-disc anthology "The Essential Little Walter"."

EURO's are OK with me

bigpull | So Cal | 02/04/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I must take exception to walkthewalk's characterization of the Euro version of BLUE'S WITH A FEELING , Chess Collectibles Volume III. As is often the case, European editions of American recordings can differ in some respects from the original US release. This is the 2nd Euro Chess compilation I've purchased. The other was the also hard to find, AINT GONNA BE YOUR DOG, Chess Collectibles Volume II by Howlin' Wolf. In both cases, the packaging (high quality paper similar to environment friendly US packaging) was the only difference. The stellar 32 bit remastering, literature and tracks are identical to the originals. The one other difference between this edition and Little Walter's US version is, it's available and affordable. If you want to wait around for the out of print, US edition to someday come up for sale and are willing to pay at least double the price, be my guest. I applaud the Euros interest in classic blues recordings for keeping these awesome recordings still available there and for us here. As walkthewalk mentioned the release on Charly that carries the same name as this release, is an entirely different and vastly inferior recording. Hopefully, a Euro version of the out of print ESSENTIAL LITTLE WALTER 2 disc set on Chess (his finest compilation), will surface sometime for those of you who's desire for the mastery of Little Walter isn't upto the $70 or more the used US version will cost you. It make's good sense to always verify that the disc(s) you're buying is the actual product you want, but the socalled checker trim versions of the Chess Master Recordings are everything you could hope for. I'm listening to my brand new Euro BLUES WITH A FEELING for the first time right now and it's FANTASTIC!"

Amazing harmonica playing.

bigpull | 09/30/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One word: wow.A must have-cd for students of the blues harmonica and for fans of innovative, heartfelt blues. Wonderful liner notes as well."