Dave's Music Database Hall of Fame: Albums (Aug. 2021)

Originally posted 8/22/2021. January 22, 2019 marked the 10-year anniversary of the DMDB blog. To honor that, Dave’s Music Database announced its own Hall of Fame. This month marks the eleventh group of album inductees. These are amongst the top twenty blues albums of all time, excluding previous inductees Robert Johnson’s The Complete Recordings, Bessie Smith’s The Essential, and Charley Patton’s Founder of the Delta Blues. See the full list of album inductees here.

Muddy Waters At Newport (live, 1960) Inducted August 2021 as “Top Blues Albums.”

This was “a great breakthrough moment in blues history.” AMG “Though his ‘50s recordings…revolutionized modern blues, it wasn’t until his raw, plugged-in steer blew up the Newport Folk Festival that whites in America gave Muddy (and the blues) proper respect.” VB “This was many white folks’ first exposure” BL “to live recorded blues.” AMG It was also significant because “the jazz audience opened its ears and embraced Chicago blues.” AMG Read more.

Bobby “Blue” Band Two Steps from the Blues (recorded 1956-60, released 1961) Inducted August 2021 as “Top Blues Albums.”

“Two Steps from the Blues is the definitive Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland album and one of the great records in electric blues and soul-blues. In fact, it’s one of the key albums in modern blues, marking a turning point when juke joint blues were seamlessly blended with gospel and Southern soul, creating a distinctly Southern sound where all of these styles blended so thoroughly it was impossible to tell where one began and one ended.” STE Read more.

Howlin’ Wolf Moanin’ in the Moonlight/Howlin’ Wolf (aka “The Rockin’ Chair Album”) (1959/1962) Inducted August 2021 as “Top Blues Albums.”

Howlin’ Wolf’s first two albums were compilations covering the years 1951 to 1962. Amongst the songs are “How Many More Years,” “Smokestack Lightning,” “Spoonful,” and “The Little Red Rooster,” all of which have been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. In the CD era, they were packaged as one release, making for an effective overview of “the cream of Wolf’s Chicago blues work.” SC Both albums have been inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame. Read more.

B.B. King Live at the Regal (recorded live 1964, released 1965) Inducted August 2021 as “Top Blues Albums.”

B.B. “King, who has been called ‘The King of the Blues’ and the ‘best blues artist of his generation,’ has been a primary influence on a number of artists, including Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and Mike Bloomfield.” NRR “King is not only a timeless singer and guitarist, he’s also a natural-born entertainer, and on Live at the Regal the listener is treated to an exhibition of all three of his talents.” DG The album was significant in King’s career because it graduated him from a largely black following to a much larger white audience. Read more.

John Mayall’s Blue Breakers Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (1966) Inducted August 2021 as “Top Blues Albums.”

“Rarely has any single record album induced such a shift in popular music.” LP This is “perhaps the best British blues album ever cut.” BE It reinvented “the American blues for a fresh audience” LP giving “rise to subgenres such as heavy metal and other roots-related rock.” LP The album significantly featured guest Eric Clapton on his “first fully realized album as a blues guitarist,” BE coming in between his stints with the Yardbirds and Cream. His work “catapulted him” LP “to the helm of the burgeoning British blues-rock scene” LP and “international exposure as well as legendary guitar rock idol status.” LP Read more.

Albert King Born Under a Bad Sign (1967) Inducted August 2021 as “Top Blues Albums.”

This Grammy Hall of Fame and National Recording Registry inductee features two songs (“Born Under a Bad Sign,” “Crosscut Saw”) which are Blues Hall of Fame inductees. The album marked King’s arrival at Stax Records where he recorded with Booker T & the MG’s and found the crossover appeal he’d previously been missing. AllMusic.com’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine calls this “one of the very greatest electric blues albums of all time.” AMG Read more.

Willie Dixon The Chess Box (compilation: 1951-69, released 1988) Inducted August 2021 as “Top Blues Albums.”

“Songwriter, producer, and talent scout, singer-bassist Willie Dixon essentially built Chicago's Cobra and Chess labels with his sweat.” AZ This collection features 13 different artists including Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Koko Taylor, and Muddy Waters, but with one unifying theme – all of these songs are written by Dixon, making a case for him to be crowned “king of the blues composers.” BF Read more.

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble Texas Flood (1983) Inducted August 2021 as “Top Blues Albums.”

“Produced by legendary talent scout John Hammond,” TD1 Texas Flood “captures the rising guitar star” TD1 “as rockin’ blues purist.” TD2 “Critics claimed that, no matter how prodigious Vaughan’s instrumental talents were, he didn’t forge a distinctive voice” STE but “that was sort of the point of Texas Flood. Vaughan didn’t hide his influences; he celebrated them, pumping fresh blood into a familiar genre” STE and becoming the “torchbearer of the ‘80s-‘90s blues revival.” TD2 Read more.

Robert Cray Strong Persuader (1986) Inducted August 2021 as “Top Blues Albums.”

Strong Persuader, Cray’s fifth studio album, was his mainstream breakthrough, opening up blues to a wider audience than it had received in decades. The Village Voice, Robert Christgau called it “the first album to break out of the genre’s sales ghetto since B.B. King was a hot item” WK and “the best blues record in many, many years.” WK Read more.

Eric Clapton From the Cradle (1994) Inducted August 2021 as “Top Blues Albums.”

No white man did more to expose blues to mass audiences than Eric Clapton. Before launching his solo career, his work with groups virtually established the blues-rock genre. As a solo artist, he regularly slipped blues covers into his albums. When his Unplugged album became the most successful of his career, selling 20 million copies and winning the Grammy for Album of the Year, he used his new-found clout to record his first all-blues cover album. Whle “he doesn’t have the strength to pull off Howlin’ Wolf’s growl or the confidence to replicate Muddy Waters’ assured phrasing” STE “the album manages to re-create the ambience of postwar electric blues, right down to the bottomless thump of the rhythm section.” STE Read more.