Best regional blues music according to redditors

I used to have a bad habit of getting blasted and then going on Amazon, and not remembering what I bought until it came in the mail a while later. Through this process, I have purchased this book, this cd, and three of these bowties.

• Agreed, Robert Johnson is a good start. Some describe his style as a blend of other musicians at his time, or at times blatant homages (or ripoffs?). For example, Johnson's Sweet Home Chicago was 'inspired' by Kokomo Arnold's Kokomo Blues.
  
  
• Skip James is another good one. If you ever watched 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou,' the song hard time killing floor blues played by the guitarist in the movie at the camp fire is a Skip James tune. One distinguishing feature of Skip is that a lot of his songs are minor key blues played (in fact, he started learning guitar in open D-minor tuning). Another classic of his is Devil Got My Woman. Artists like Cream have covered his songs, like I'm so glad, and was an influence to Robert Johnson (for example, compare 22-20 blues and 32-20 blues.
  
  
• Son House is another blues musician who influenced Johnson and people after him. An example of a modern cover of one of his songs is the White Stripes cover of Son's Death Letter Blues.
  
  Other standards that should be explored more are
  
  
• Blind Lemon Jefferson,
  
• Blind Willie McTell,
  
• Blind Willie Johnson,
  
• and the not-so-blind Kokomo Arnold, others as well.
  
  
  One good start for Folk Music in general is The American Folkways Collection, which has a few highlights from some a few other blues musicians.
  
  Wikipedia is good for discovering blues music, by reading the articles on these guys and looking at who they played with or were influenced by. Also good to read articles about rock musicians like Led Zeppelin, Yardbirds, Cream, Clapton, and look at the background or inspiration to their music since a lot of their songs are covers of some old blues tunes (e.g. compare Led Zeppelin's version of 'Nobody's Fault of Mine' to Blind Willie Johnson's version.
  
  

check out this version by [Tommy Jarrell] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e56j2jDGHw)

Defining folk music is tough, because the term has become a catchall for many different types of music. Folk music was very much an oral tradition for a long, long time. Songs would melt into one another and many common themes could be found in many different songs. Look at the story of Stack-O-Lee and Billy Lyons or Betty and Dupree. These stories have been told in different songs dozens of times.

I would point you to the [Folkways Anthology of American Folk Music] (https://www.amazon.com/Anthology-American-Music-Edited-Harry/dp/B000001DJU) as a great starting point for the "genre." It does a great job of showing the many different styles of music that have since come under the folk umbrella. It also basically lays out the blueprint for so much of the popular music that followed in the decades since it's release.

Blue.

• The blues: Bessie Smith, Son House, basically everything off the Anthology of American Folk Music, Doug Macleod, and swing/jazz stuff (the Duke).
  
  
• Alternative (?): The Pixies, Butthole Surfers, Violent Femmes, The Mars Volta, At the Drive-In, Blood Brothers
  
  
• Older Stuff: B-52s, Sisters of Mercy, Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Cure (Pornography), Joy Division, The Go-Gos, Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell, Boingo, The Smiths
  
  
• Indie/Folk: Conor Oberst / Bright Eyes, Bon Iver, Cat Power, M. Ward,
  
  
• Rap: Anything by RZA (Gravediggaz' 6 Feet Deep album), Dr. Octagon, Beastie Boys
  
  
• Misc: Bad Religion, Bach, Warpaint, Cake, Dresden Dolls, James Blake, Joanna Newsom, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
  
  
  So yeah. A little all over with a dark side I guess.
  
  (edit: formatting, and I can't believe I forgot the Smiths)

| | |
|-:|:-|
|name|Son House|
|about artist|Eddie James House, Jr. (March 21, 1902 – October 19, 1988), better known as Son House, was an influential blues singer and guitarist. His date of birth is a matter of some debate. Son House himself alleged that he was middle aged during World War I, and, more specifically, that he was 79 in 1965, which would mean that he was born around 1886. However, all legal records place his birth on March 21, 1902. ([more on last.fm](http://www.last.fm/music/Son House))|
|album|Father of Folk Blues, released |
|track|John the Revelator|
|images|album image, artist image|
|links|track on amazon, album on amazon|
|tags|blues, americana|
|similar|Charley Patton, Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, Bukka White|
|metrics|lastfm listeners: 239,878, lastfm plays: 1,706,662, youtube plays: 286,496, radd.it score: 4.75|


Please downvote this comment if this data is incorrect!
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Folk songs for me begin and end with the Anthology of American Folk Music, collated in the '50s by Harry Smith. This is Greil Marcus's "old weird America" in spades: the last song on Disc One (the must-have record of the set) is Kelly Harrell's "My Name is John Johanna," likely the scariest music I've ever heard.

You may enjoy The Music Never Stopped: The Roots of the Grateful Dead.

Waxtime pressing. Buyer beware. Same price on amazon https://www.amazon.com/John-Lee-Hooker-Bonus-Tracks/dp/B00IGAPKWY/.

You're in the right city, wrong era. Though Stagger Lee wasn't produced by Cosimo Matassa, a good crash course on New Orleans rhythm & blues can be had by listening to the big ol' compilation of Cosimo's works

You might also want to listen to WWOZ on weekdays from 7 to 10.

In my opinion, the tracks he recorded in 1930 are what makes him special. There's a night-and-day difference between the urgency and grit of those few songs and his "rediscovery" stuff. They're all available on Spotify. If you want a hard copy or want to ensure that you get the best sound quality, this Yazoo release of Skip James tracks weirdly enough has four of those Son House tracks tacked on and Yazoo is known for doing a good job of transferring from old 78s. Also, Skip James is life-changingly good. Listen to Cypress Blues or Hard Time Killing Floor.

Yazoo has another cool compilation that includes the very recently discovered Clarksdale Moan. It's pretty lucky that that one random record survived for 80 years!

Great post. There’s an album called, “Roots of the Dead” I discovered while working at a music store way back in the day. Not sure if OP is referencing the same. Here’s the link. Highly recommend.

I would just look for compilations like:

Great American Big Bands

Big Band Era Vol. 2

Anthology Of Big Band Swing 1930-1955

A Big Band Christmas

I have this great collection which is called An Anthology of Big Band Swing 1930-1955 and I really like it. It's sort of obscure though. Here's a link:

http://www.amazon.com/Anthology-Big-Band-Swing-1930-1955/dp/B000003N3T

There are some great recordings on there.

Essential album for me
The music never stopped: roots of the grateful dead

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000000DT2?pc_redir=1397153573&robot_redir=1

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Not sure if you'd consider it great, but I love the Derek Trucks Band's Live at Georgia Theater album. So much good stuff and all of the songs are the Live Bootleg Version. Here's an Apple Music link, Spotify Link, and Amazon link. So good.

A lot of the songs were originally written and recording in the 1920's-30's. This is certainly an amazing movie, and the soundtrack is incredible to boot, but I would highly recommend checking out some of Alan Lomax's field recordings. Truly amazing. "Popular Songbook" is by far my favorite compilation and features the original version of "Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby."

I love that Stack O'lee track. I had no idea Bussard had a copy but I can't say I'm surprised. I got The Stuff Dreams are Made of a few years ago and that song really stood out for me. It's a great compilation of the worlds rarest 78's.