Louis Armstrong’s Recording of King Oliver’s West End Blues was inducted to the the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1974. This song, originally recorded in 1928, is about the West side of the French Quarter in New Orleans. It’s a magical tune about a magical place. If you spent any time in Nawlens you’ll be transported back there in an instant by watching and listening to this youtube video.
A special thanks to Dave Gross, a rising star on the blues scene, and also really fun to follow on Twitter @davegrossblues, for bringing this amazing song to my attention.
I’m a music lover with a pretty large collection of music. I resorted to storing all my CD’s in binders a long time ago. Then there got to be too many binders and filing the CDs was bothersome so I converted to MP3s and got a bluetooth compatible stereo to stream from my computer to the stereo. All this to say I’m at the point where I prefer good quality MP3s to CD’s unless the CD comes with significant value add. The reason I’m telling you all this is because I found an excellent source for blues MP3s at eMusic.
My experience has been that eMusic had an incredible selection of music but not always the latest releases. Emusic is a particularly good source for older releases which obviously includes a lot of blues. I’m really happy with my subscription. $7.99 a month entitles me to download 30 MP3s a month and review many blues artists for my blog. What’s it all got to do with free MP3 versions of Luther Allison’s new release you may ask? Well to my surprise Luther Allisions new CD “Songs From The Road” is available now on eMusic and since you get 25 free mp3s for signing up for a trial subscription I assume that means you’d be able to get this album for free (some restrictions apply so I can’t guarantee the availability). Anyway the trial is no risk. You can sign up, download your mp3s and quit the service without ever paying a cent. If you’re a music fan like me though, I’m pretty sure you’ll be very happy with emusic’s selection and stay subscribed to get the next 30 tunes.
I subscribe to eMusic which provides me with 30 MP3 downloads a month. This gives me an opportunity to sample lots of great blues music and keep my MP3 player filled with fresh tunes. I was really impressed this month as I was able to get the whole album “Since Way Back” by Gerry Hundt. I only discovered Gerry’s music a couple of days ago and was throughly enjoying his myspace page. You can get his album too by signing up for a free eMusic trial by clicking on the image at the end of this post.
For now here is an MP3 Widget from Amazon so you can sample this fine album or if you want to read more on Gerry Hundt check out my brief post and Gerry’s Myspace page here. But most importantly come on back and sign up for your free eMusictrial to get the album free and to support Worldofblues.com.
There have been a lot of people rave to me about Peter Green. I have to admit I just didn’t get it. I only own one Peter Green CD, Alone with the Blues, and while I’ve certainly enjoyed it I didn’t feel compelled to run out and get more. My friend on twitter TimWD took it upon himself to educate me. With a fine list of recommendations I went off to Amazon and Emusic to figure out what I was missing. Tim provided me with this advice while we chatted on the web while he was watching Peter Green:
RT @worldofblues: B.B. King’s Bluesville Picks to Click for July 6, 2009 http://bit.ly/qrxyT ~ BBK said only Peter Green made hairs stand up
You want Long Grey Mare, Oh Well (pts 1&2), Dragonfly, Merry Go Round, Doctor John for starters. Search old FM tracks c.1969
Albatross, absolutely stunning. Cried at the beauty of Pete’s guitar. No encore.
Damn did I forget BMW? LOL (note: that’s Black Magic Woman not a reference to motorcycles though I hear they make cars too).
Man of the World makes me cry every time. Green Manalishi makes me shiver. Just sing along to all the bluesy ones.
I was able to get the following MP3s from emusic.com on my monthly subscription:
From Four Until Late Feat Dr John
The Green Manalishi
Black Magic Woman
Oh Well
Man Of The World
Albatross
You can get them too - free actually if you sign up for an emusic.com trial account - hey and I get a kick back for you signing up too so please do :>). Just click on the ad below.
Anyway, I’m a Peter Green convert now and it seems to me that The Supernatural Anthology is the Peter Green album to own. Here is a little MP3 Widget from Amazon so you can hear some fine previews from that album.
If you want to pick up the whole album - well one free emusic trial will allow you to download all tracks or you can find it here Amazon.
I’ve been getting my monthly fix of blues MP3s from eMusic tonight. My subscription entitles me to 30 MP3’s per month. I’ve blogged about emusic before and the fact they have lots of great tunes and you get 25 free MP3s of your choice just for signing up (you can cancel before you pay anything). To give blues lovers a taste of the type of music you can get from emusic here is a list of the MP3s I picked up tonight to round out this months collection:
Albert King Born Under a Bad Sign
Albert King Kansas City
Big Bill Broonzy Glory Of Love
Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry Trouble In Mind
Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry Everyday I Have the Blues
Canned Heat Bullfrog Blues
Dave Van Ronk You've Been A Good Old Wagon
Elmore James Madison Blues
Howlin Wolf Highway 49
Howlin Wolf Wang Dang Doodle
Howlin Wolf Built For Comfort
John Lee Hooker Boogie Chillun
Larry McCray All Along the Watchtower
Mississippi Fred McDowell You Got to Move
Rev Gary Davis Cocaine Blues
Robert Johnson Come On In My Kitchen
Taj Mahal Corrina
The Wet Willie Band She Caught The Katy
So if you want to check out emusic click on the banner below and start a free trial. You can get 25 free tunes and cancel before you ever start paying for a subscription.
If you’re curious about what else may be up on emusic.com that you may like leave a comment with the name of the artist you’re interested in and I’ll check it out and let you know if they have anything from them that you can download.
There have been a lot of people rave to me about Peter Green. I have to admit I just didn’t get it. I only own one Peter Green CD, 
Anthology is the Peter Green album to own. Here is a little MP3 Widget from Amazon so you can hear some fine previews from that album. 
