Blind_Willie_Mctell

My moods change and I listen to lots of different styles of music but when it comes to pre-war blues, did anyone have a better guitar-tone than Blind Willie McTell'' Generally speaking, I rarely listen to anyone directly after I listen to McTell simply because the depth and richness of his tone makes other guitarists playing sound..well, not as rich. That's not to take anything away from the other masters like Lonnie Johnson (whom I LOVE), etc... it just speaks to how truly huge McTell's sound was. And yes part of it is just the 12-string factor, but I'd even choose McTell over other 12-stringers. If you're unfamiliar with McTell, I think I would say that in certain aspects, some of his songs make me think of Woody Guthrie. If you don't like Woody then PLEASE don't let that scare you away from this great box-set. McTell had a better voice, he was an infinitely better guitarist, and his songs never have the political focus that Woody's have, but some of McTell's folkier talking-blues tunes do make me think of Woody a bit. And let it be known that I easily prefer McTell over Woody in terms of "performance ability". Plus, many of his songs don't make me think of Woody at all, such as Talking To Myself for instance. This is one of my favorite songs in all of pre-war blues. Really unique and wonderful, I've yet to hear anything like it by anyone else. You'll also notice that Robert Johnson was obviously familiar with McTell, as Robert's They're Red Hot is almost rhythmically identical to a couple of McTell's tunes on this set. All in all, there's nothing that can really be said except "Buy this set!". It's inexpensive and it's one of the best collections of one of the best blues musicians that ever lived. Oh! One more thing, yes the title is indeed misleading if you didn't know anything about McTell before reading this. This is not a "definitive collection of everything Blind Willie McTell recorded". It is only the definitive collection of everything he recorded for the Columbia, Okeh, and Vocalion family of labels. Worth every penny.