Looking for Blues with High Fidelity

This is off the cuff but Blues is a very wide genre. Many good artists are often regional. Many also are more popular in Europe Like Luther Allison, et al. And their music is not as easily found. But they are very rewarding. These are albums I have and can recommend

Layla Zoe - Breaking Free

Keb Mo - Slow Down & Just Like You

Keb Mo & Taj Mahal - TajMo(?)

Collins, Cray * Copeland - Showdown

James Cotton - Live From Chicago Mr Superharp Himself

Big Twist - Live from Chicago

Jimmy Smith - Dot Com Blues

Toronzo Cannon - Pain Around Me & Politician Preacher or Pimp

Albert King - Cold Snap

Some names of interest

Shemeka Copeland

Joe Bonamassa & Beth Hart

Gary Moore

Samantha Fish

Charlie Musselwhite

Tommy Castro

Roomful Of Blues

Blues Company: My little angel

Stevie Ray Vaughn: Chitlins with carne & Riviera Paradise

All great songs, and well recorded. Enjoy!

Lots of excellent recommendations from others. I would also add Buddy Guy - Blues Singer and the great falsetto album Skip James - Blues from the Delta to go along with Muddy Water - Folk Singers stand out fidelity. It isn’t technically a blues album, but Van Morrison and John Lee Hooker - The Healing Game has excellent fidelity. There are so many others, but these are a couple that come to mind.

P.S there is often a wide range of fidelity quality on the same Howlin’ Wolf albums. There is an excellent high fidelity recording of Smokestack Lightnin’ on The Millennium Collection 20th Century Masters. The gain the engineer employed is quite low though.

So many great blues albums! I could go on for hours and write a book about it :).

This seemed like an opportune time to share this piece.

I would suggest eschewing any expectation of elite engineering with this type of music.

Late-1920s-through-mid-1960s recordings of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House, Blind Willie McTell, Charley Patton, Huddie Ledbetter, Blind Willie Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Robert Johnson, Skip James, Reverend Gary Davis, Mississippi Fred McDowell and others are the cream of the crop. Recording quality ranging from rough to acceptable.

If I could have a fast food chain (Stevie Ray Vaughn, Joe Bonamassa, Eric Clapton) or real Mexican food, I’ll take the real deal any time.

No amount of slick audio engineering can transform a pretender into a contender.