PS Yes, I’m from the Chicago area. I didn’t pick up on the blues until into the 1970s, but there were still a few of the greats around. I didn’t go to Maxwell Street much, mostly the North Side clubs, where the audience was, but also a few of the South Side places that were left—Teresa’s, the Checkerboard. A lot of us white guys in the sixties who listened to the guys (Clapton, etc.) who listened to the old blues guys decided to go back to the originals. For Son House, try Preaching the Blues, Walking Blues (the Delta anthem), My Black Mama, County Farm Blues, Death Letter*. I’d go first for the 1930 Paramount recordings rather than the stuff from the 1960s and 1970s. The sound quality isn’t as good, but he was forty years younger. Not that the later stuff isn’t pretty good. I’m not so keen on the Alan Lomax Library of Congress field recordings from 1942–43, unless you’re a completist. For Robert Johnson, start with Preaching Blues**. Surely on the short list for best three minutes of music ever recorded. Terraplane Blues, Stones in My Passway, Me and the Devil, Walking Blues, If I Had Possession over Judgment Day, and the standards that are probably still playing somewhere in the world at any given time, Dust My Broom and Sweet Home Chicago. Elmore James is Elmore James. He plays the same few riffs over and over, but it all really rocks. The Muddy Waters pieces written by Willie Dixon from the 1950s are great fun, but don’t miss the early Chess recordings from the late forties backed only with Big Crawford on bass—Can’t Be Satisfied, Trainfare Home. I highly recommend two associates of Robert Johnson, his traveling buddy Johnny Shines and his “stepson” Robert Lockwood Junior. Shines’s cover of Terraplane Blues (which he also recorded several times as Fishtail (as in fishtail Cadillac) and Dynaflow Blues. Lockwood is the only guy that Johnson ever taught his music. He doesn’t have much of a voice but he is an great guitarist. If the harmonica is your thing, the second Sonny Boy Williamson (Alec “Rice” Miller) is not to be missed. The Allman Brothers cover of One Way Out (originally done by Elmore James) is not to be missed. The death of Duane Allman was a real tragedy. I don’t know what you’ll find on YouTube. If I knew how to attach files to these posts, I’d gladly do so.

* Mme and I were sitting in a coffee house in Madison when a rocking cover of Death Letter was playing. It turned out to be by an outfit called White Stripes. The guy gets the number, although it’s maybe a tad over the top.

** I’ve got a recording by the Soldier String Quartet of Preaching Blues and If I Had Possession over Judgment Day. The former shows just what a complex piece of music it is. The latter (which is Johnson’s version of Rolling and Tumbling, first recorded by Hambone Willie Newbern) is sung by a woman, which detracts a bit, but otherwise it’s an excellent version. I recorded these off the radio. I don’t know if it’s available elsewhere, although the SSQ does have an album of blues covers.

PS: Mr. Blanc, I think you were one of the Commenters who grew up around Chicago. If so, you had some great music available. I was a little behind you, but I remember getting to Maxwell Street around dawn on Sunday mornings, for some fine free music. That and the (chicken-)fried pork-chop sandwiches stand out in my memory. But that was when deep-frying was done with Lard as God intended.

PS: Boomer music? I think of it as older than that even, as I think of Robert Johnson as a depression era guy (maybe just from the movie "Oh Brother, where Art Thou?") I think of the Boomers as liking the White man's blues, so as Led Zeppelin's or The Allman Brothers blues stuff - all great too!

I have nothing against the blues, and I've heard those 3 names so many times that I figure there must be something to their stuff. Could you give me a few of your favorite song names? Hopefully they are on youtube.

PS Stevie Wonder (or, Little Stevie Wonder, as he was known then) isn’t exactly after my time. I was certainly aware of him when he came on the scene. But by the time he became big, I was already pretty far down Blues Alley and had stopped listening to pop music. That was about 1971. How about some Son House or Robert Johnson or Elmore James or Muddy Waters? Or is that “Boomer” music?