Various Artists: Rollin’ And Tumblin’ - American Electric Blues 1965-1971, 3CD Box Set

• 63-track box set from a period when the blues was evolving, interacting with rock and soul music and being championed by a new young white audience.

• Key artists include Howlin’ Wolf, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Muddy Waters, Canned Heat, B.B. King, Bo Diddley, The Allman Brothers Band, Freddie King, Big Brother And The Holding Company (featuring Janis Joplin), Etta James, The Electric Flag, Buddy Guy, Ry Cooder, Magic Sam Blues Band, Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band, Ike And Tina Turner and more.

• Includes blues classics such as Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Killing Floor’, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s ‘Born In Chicago’ (in a rare early version from the ‘Folksong 65’ Elektra compilation), Etta James’ ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’, Slim Harpo’s ‘Baby Scratch My Back’ and B.B. King’s ‘The Thrill Is Gone’. Mastering is by Grammy-nominated archivist/producer Alec Palao.

The mid to late 60s was a period of change for blues music, with full amplification the only way to have a chance of an R&B hit. A band needed an electric guitar, drums and often a harmonica played through an amp for a deliberately distorted effect. The concept of the blues guitar hero came into effect with artists whose dexterity encapsulated their appeal. After B.B. King came Buddy Guy (playing here on his own and as part of Junior Wells’ Chicago Blues Band), Otis Rush, Freddie King and increasingly influential white guitarists such as Duane Allman (who plays with Wilson Pickett and Johnny Jenkins as well as The Allman Brothers Band), Mike Bloomfield (included here with The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Electric Flag and with Al Kooper) and Ry Cooder (here with Captain Beefheart and solo).

Soul artists including Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin and Johnnie Taylor paid tribute to soul’s blues roots and as America’s black youth increasingly preferred the sound of Motown, white youth adopted the blues, discovered through English bands such as The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds and later Cream and Led Zeppelin.

US bands such as Canned Heat were completely immersed in the blues, others used it as a base for improvisation and psychedelic blues bands including Big Brother And The Holding Company and The Electric Flag (who featured horns) evolved mixing blues with soul and rock, the latter turning Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Killing Floor’ into an anti-Vietnam protest, as the hippy counterculture embraced the blues.

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