How to find the good CD recordings?

whart, I also like the older Zep and lean strongly toward their blues based songs. So strongly in fact that I've gotten into the blues that inspired them and have collected many of the blues songs they, well, ripped off. Unfortunately all of these blues songs I collected via iTunes which I only recently learned and now recognize are of fairly poor quality.

I really, really don't want to go down the rabbit hole of collecting blues 45s (or earlier) so I'm not even sure how to go about getting quality recordings of that music......which was as often as not produced on old equipment and with fairly poor quality.

I have enjoyed going to Clarksdale, Mississippi (where the fabled crossroads are) for their spring blues festival. There are stencils of Robert Plant's face spray painted all over Clarksdale.

A lot of the older rock recordings are not very good.  I am a huge Zepplin fan and I was always surprised by the poor quality of their recordings.  A lot of it is due to the compression of the dynamics which sucks the life out of recordings.  Even current groups don't get it and still use way too much compression.  You can only do so much with re-mastering and really have to get back to the original mix.  That being said some of the latter recordings of Bonnie Raitt, Rosanne Cash, Patty Griffin, Wailin' Jennys, etc. are well done.  I always look for the recording engineer as a hope of a good recording. 

That’s why it’s called Loudness Wars. Because when they overly compress the CD dynamic range they can make it louder. So a clue that a given CD has been overly compressed is often that you have to turn the volume down. Whereas for CDs with relatively high dynamic range you might find you have to turn the volume up.

@n80- I too am a big fan of blues, both the old rural stuff (I buy transcriptions, I don’t play 78s) as well as the electric era (from Chicago ’50s era to British blues revival). If you like crushing blues rock, try Barbed Wire Sandwich by Black Cat Bones- it was sort of a crude precursor to Free, without the vocal quality of Paul Rodgers, but it’s a killer. (I have a couple CDs of it, the original vinyl pressing is pretty big money- I’ll try and figure out which one I have that sounds better). Free’s first album, Tons of Sobs, is also a great, great blues rock record- Guy Stevens at Island had a very loose hand, and the band didn’t sound very "produced." Not sure about CD versions of that, but before they morphed into that ’Bad Company’ sound, they were first a monster hard rock/blues act.
That’s cool that you go to Clarksdale (ville). We passed through a couple years ago on our way down to Greenwood, Miss. Despite the bleak history of the Delta, it was surprisingly lush and beautiful- and people couldn’t have been nicer. I did have to ask what ’come-back sauce’ was. :)
PS: the Barbed Wire Sandwich CD that sounds better than the other one I bought is BGOCD916, allegedly mastered from the tapes. Not too pricey. Check Discogs for the BGO copy, circa 2010, i think. That may lead you to Leaf Hound, Growers of Mushroom, which has a very Zep 1.5 sound. The original vinyl record goes for astronomical money. I think the See for Miles CD was made from the tape. I can check.

whart,

I lean toward the delta blues but like it all. I'm not an expert by any means. 

I lived in Clarksdale as a child and we have good friends in Greenwood. He is an engineer and worked on the BB King museum in Indianola and he met BB many times. The delta is a fascinating place culturally. So much art and literature came out of it. I love going back. Their is a great blues record store there, Cat Head music. The guy who owns it pretty much runs the blues festival. It is amazing how many Europeans come to it. They seem to appreciate the blues more in Europe than we do here. Most of the acts at the blues festival tour in Europe often but not much here in the states.

Anyway, my Zep 1-4 CDs were mastered by Diament. I've listened again tonight and they are not as bad as I first thought they were. 

Have not listened to much Free except for their one big hit. Will look into that. And thanks for the reference to Black Cat Bones.

If you haven't looked into Gary Clark, Jr you should. He is very talented and has some blues based stuff mixed in with heavy guitar work and even some R&B.