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First volume in a series of four 2-CD digipac sets.
Almost 3 hours of pre-war blues.
Covering the story of acoustic blues from 1923 to 1939.
Pre-war recordings, a total of 58 tracks, carefully re-mastered from the original 78s.
134-page booklet with rare photos and in-depth liner notes and bios.
Blues greats like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Tommy Johnson, Charley Patton, Son House, Bukka White, and Robert Johnson alongside blues obscurities like Rube Lacy, Little Hat Jones, a. m. o.

August 10, 1920 was a crucial day for the future of the blues. That's when Mamie Smith recorded her groundbreaking Crazy Blues for OKeh Records. Her glamorous approach to the music was solidly based in the vaudeville tradition, the accompaniment dominated by jazzy horns and flowery piano.

The next big trend to emerge a little later in the decade revolved around blues guitarists, virtually all of them originally hailing from the rural South, their approach closely related to field hollers and work songs. Many were veritable virtuosos on their instruments. Lonnie Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Blake, and Skip James mapped out the guitar-dominated long-term future of the idiom with every 78 they released. These giants made their nimble fretwork heard over the cacophonous din inside the rowdy juke joints where they plied their trade by fretting their instruments with a slide or bottleneck. They achieved a fluid, crying sound on their acoustic axes, or pounded the hell out of their boxes with forceful chording. Performers popular enough to afford them acquired flashy steel-bodied National guitars that resonated louder than standard models.

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