Search - Floyd Jones, Eddie Taylor :: Masters of Modern Blues

4½ stars - a real gem

Docendo Discimus | Vita scholae | 01/20/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Recorded in June, 1966, vol. 3 is perhaps the best of the "Masters Of Modern Blues" albums, alongside J.B. Hutto's, of course.

Floyd Jones and his sessionmate, Jimmy Reed's lead guitarist Eddie Taylor, were both tragically underrecorded, and this is the only compact disc to feature Jones as a frontman.

He performs the lead vocal on eight of these 16 songs, all of which have Eddie Taylor handling lead guitar duties, and Taylor takes the lead on the remaining eight songs, on which Floyd Jones plays bass.



There may be nothing here as instantly memorable as "Hoochie Coochie Man" or "Little Red Rooster", but these songs are of consistently very high quality, including Floyd Jones' gloomy "Dark Road", "Stockyard Blues", and "Hard Times", and Eddie Taylor's "Train Fare Home", "After Hours", and "Big Town Playboy". And the two headliners are backed by a real superstar combo which features blues drummer extraordinaire Fred Below, harmonica ace Big Walter Horton, and the always magnificent piano player Otis Spann, who shines all the way through the album.

This is classic, tough, gritty Chicago blues, all fluid harmonica and tinkling boogie piano, and no synthetic organs or misplaced backup singers.

Highly recommended."