Today, Delmark is at the forefront of its field when it comes to documenting the Chicago Blues scene. The label boasts a catalog of several hundred releases, including a wealth of reissues, but given the rich diversity on hand sometimes treasures are easily overlooked. The twelve discs below (in no particular order) are just a few of these uncut gems.

Morris Pejoe/Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Spires- Wrapped In My Baby

Pejoe hit the Windy City scene via Louisiana while Spires, his neighbor on this disc hailed from Mississippi, but both were steeped solidly in the street-centered sounds of their adopted home. Taped in producer Al Smith’s basement, a favorite hang out some of most regal Blues royalty in the city, the sound on these sides is coarse and flattened dispensing with any shred of studio polish, but the concrete walls of the impromptu ‘studio’ if anything add to the devil may care flavor of the sessions. These guys set up shop and commenced to hammering out their own highly personal versions of the Blues without much concern for crafting a ‘hit.’ Earl Phillips (on the Pejoe cuts) and Ted Porter (on the Spires efforts) hold court on a ‘pots and pans’ drum kit, banging out basic shuffle beats as the guitars of Pejoe and Spires, over amplified in the extreme, rip out a ragged rhythmic accompaniment to their own tortured vocals. When Pejoe wails “Let’s Get High, trying to rock this joint tonight” over a surging current of distorted guitar, sax, piano and drums you can bet he means it. Spires only turns in four numbers, but his cuts are even more stripped down and gnarled.

Big Joe Williams- Blues on Highway 49

Big Joe was one of the most unrefined, unrepentantly vernacular artists in the history of the Blues. Piecing together ramshackle guitars from old battered remnants all he required was a place to rest his haunches and an audience to play for. He was at his best alone, or with the most rudimentary rhythmic accompaniment afforded by string bass and this date finds him in just such a setting. Improvising through a dozen of his ‘standards’ he takes his sweet time, pausing for tangential asides as the mood strikes him, picking out brittle chords on his nine-string against the steady pulse of Ransom Knowling’s supple strings and barking out his lyrics with a signature turpentine bite. This is the Blues at its most unadorned, unpretentious and beguiling.

Magic Sam- Live

In a city overflowing with Blues legends the aptly monikered Magic Sam Maghett was a musician secure in his stature amongst the upper echelon of players. But like many who burn brightly in the talent department his flame was snuffed out far to soon. This disc offers a side of Sam rarely heard on record, documenting him in live performance. Taped by two fans on portable decks in two different settings, a South Side Chicago blues club and the Ann Arbor Blues Fest, the recordings find Sam fronting both a fleshed out band and a skeletal trio. While the sound is raw and unmixed the tarnished fidelity if anything adds to the immediacy of Sam’s delivery and stinging guitar as well as the illusion of being crammed in with other listeners soaking in the bands’ sounds as they poured forth in electrified torrents from the stage. Sam works his fans in each setting and turns out scorching versions of such staples as “I Just Got to Know,” “All Your Love,” and “Looking Good,” his reverb-laced chords burning a fiery trail straight through the cores of the amps.

Magic Sam- Give Me Time

This collection is something of a flipside to the live disc- Sam in his living room sans band with a small clutch of friends and family in attendance listening to him work through skeletal versions of his songs. Over the dozen tracks Sam focuses attention not on his fretwork (which often serves simply as rhythmic accompaniment), but on his vocals proving that his formidable chops were only a fraction of the total Magic Sam package. Again the fidelity isn’t up to studio standards, but the hollow, washed out nature of many of the tracks only augments the soulful, sometimes harried nature of his emotive vocals (as on the haunting “That’s Why I’m Crying”). There’s even an advisory on the disc’s tray card suggesting that Magic Sam neophytes start with his studio work. I disagree. This disc is Sam in his element, working through his timeless changes in front of an intimately familiar audience and feeding off their reverential energy- monumental stuff!

J.B. Hutto & the Hawks- Hawk Squat

Hutto was one of the second tier statesmen of the slide guitar. Favoring a caustic attack on his strings in the tradition of Elmore James and Hound Dog Taylor his riffs were often replete with heavy amplification and searing intensity. This set, engineered with the goal of capturing the sound of the man and regular band at their taproom rawest largely delivers the goods. Sunnyland Slim switches between ivories and uncharacteristic organ shelling out rhythms sometimes barrelhouse, at others chicken shack and the rest of the rhythm section rounded out by Dave Myers or Junior Pettis on bass and Frank Kirkland on drums lock down a tight well-greased groove. AACM reedman Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre even shows up on half the tracks honking out pensive commentary to the band’s more inflammatory exclamations (a moonlight gig for some extra bread perhaps?). Hutto’s hoarse vocals are the final ingredient and while the man wouldn’t win any enunciation contests he still gets the feeling through on warhorses from his songbook such as “20% Alcohol,” “Hip Shakin’” and “Notoriety Woman.”

Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup- Meets the Master Blues Bassists

One of the key uncredited architects of Rock & Roll Crudup never received his true due. Elvis lifted his tunes and appropriated them into a ‘pioneering’ music that will forever be attributed to The King in popular circles, but in spite of the injustice Crudup soldiered on. This date finds him in his twilight years ranging over his vast repertoire in a relaxed fashion and in the company of the finest bassists the Blues ever produced, Willie Dixon and Ransom Knowling. The bassists alternate accompanist chores with Dixon taking the odd ones and Knowling covering the evens except for the final track. Tunes are stripped to a minimum in terms of musical content with Crudup’s basic electric chords undulating beneath his high wire croon. Compared to Dixon and Knowling his musicianship seems almost rudimentary. Still it’s his vocals and lyrics that are the real draw and the songs convey a timeless pathos that transcends their simple structures. Check in on the unabashed violence and fear of tracks like “This War Is Awful” and “Crazy House Blues” for a bitter taste.

Brewer Phillips- Homebrew

This one might be something of a disappointment for folks familiar with Phillips long tenure with Hound Dog Taylor. As a member of the latter’s Houserockers Phillips was famous for blistering lead and hard chugging bass guitar that gloriously sacrificed any semblance of civility for pure string snapping force. Conversely, on this outing the emphasis is on laidback shuffle blues and while the intensity never reaches even a fraction of what Phillips was capable of in the company of his old employer the results are largely enjoyable on their own terms and merits. The slack served up by the band allows Phillips plenty of room for solos but the majority of tunes favor the heavy piano of Aaron Moore, who also handles the majority of vocals. Session men Willie Black and Huckleberry Hound round out the group. While a lot of the tunes suffer from sameness in sound it’s still gratifying to see Phillips presented with a rare chance to lead his own date after paying his dues for so long in the shadow of Taylor.

Sunnyland Slim- House Rent Party

The title of this one is a perfect encapsulation of what’s inside. Convening a crew of his regular cronies including St. Louis Jimmy, Willie Mabon and Jimmy Rogers Slim’s fifteen sides originally cut for the fly-by-night Apollo label have a pervasive juke joint feel. Slim sticks mainly to barrelhouse and boogie knocking out sparse chords beneath shouting vocals supplied by both himself and his associates. Most are loose talking blues that rely on familiar changes and emphatic expression. Mabon’s high lonesome harmonica chimes in on “Boogie Man” and “It Keeps Rainin’” and a twenty something Jimmy Rogers leads the charge on protean versions of “I’m In Love” and “That’s All Right.” St. Louis Jimmy takes a vocal bow on five numbers weaving his hoarse laments between Slim’s rolling note clusters. One of the most fascinating aspects of the collection is the comparison between the players singing styles. All of the sides were waxed at the close of the 1940s and their authoritative flavor presages the coming electric typhoon kicked up by such cats as Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Robert Nighthawk.

Roosevelt Sykes- Hard Drivin’ Blues

One of four discs by Sykes on Delmark the focus here is mainly on the pianist solo. Homesick James lends a hand six of the cuts but he’s way back in the mix and it’s Sykes ivories and corrugated voice that a guiding light through the topical harvest of tunes. Over the course of the seventeen snapshots of his style Sykes whoops, hollers, shouts and guffaws rolling out a tattered red carpet of surprisingly varied keyboard variations. Sykes was one of the most prolific Pre-War pianists and his popularity remained strong up until his passing. Judging from these later chestnuts it’s easy to see why his abilities were so much in demand.

Yank Rachell- Chicago Style

The mandolin is something of a forgotten instrument in the Blues and while integral to early Black string band traditions it didn’t make the transition to urban forms of African American music too smoothly. Chicago mainstays like Rachell and Johnny Young were among the few players interested in keeping the mandolin alive as a viable Blues voice. This date comes from shortly after Rachell’s rediscovery during the heyday of the 60s Blues revival and finds the veteran bluesman plugging in his rustic axe and updating his sound to fit with his modern sidemen. At the core though the countrified roots remain intact and Rachell dips heavily into the down home songbook bag he shared with his partner Sleepy John Estes in the 1930s. There are moments of indecision where the styles seem to clash some, but above it all Rachell’s gruff verses and hummingbird strums scribble out undeniable feelings of hard luck, lost loves and broken dreams.

Memphis Slim- Memphis Slim USA

The tray card on the back of this one boasts that Memphis Slim has put more records in the can “than any other pianist in blues history.” A bold claim, but Slim’s the kind of player with the prodigious chops to prove it and fortunately his talent saturates these mid-50s sides originally distributed by the United label. Slim’s working band the Houserockers was one of the most eclectic aggregates on the scene as the 19 songs on hand eloquently demonstrate. Matt “Guitar” Murphy’s racetrack riffs and the honking sax section of Neil Green and Jim Conley reference everything from primitive R&B to full-tilt jump blues and Slim not to be outdone in terms of off-kilter inspiration even switches to celeste(!) for several tunes. As if all this wasn’t enough to lock these sessions as among the most bizarre in Blues folklore, there’s also an unidentified bongo drummer on board whose percolating beats add some Latin grease to tracks like “Banana Oil” and “She’s Alright.” Also included are several false starts that visit the group in the midst of creation trying to work out the tunes to their own collective satisfaction, often with hilarious results.

Robert Nighthawk- Bricks In My Pillow

Ask your average casual blues fan who the King of Chicago Blues was and odds are they’ll answer Muddy Waters. Every bit his well-known colleague’s equal Nighthawk’s name gets mentioned much less often. Whereas Waters commanded the clubs and Nighthawk ruled the street, Maxwell Street that is, the heart of Chicago’s Blues culture for decades. This disc collects the seminal sides Nighthawk cut for the United label that cemented his reputation and reach as one of the most formidable slide guitarist in the business. Signature tunes like “Cryin’ Won’t Help You” and “Maggie Campbell” are given definitive studio treatments with Nighthawk’s slide ringing out seamless cerulean sentiments around his richly burnished vocals. Filling out the ‘Nighthawk Band’ are heavy hitters like Roosevelt Sykes and the ever-propulsive Ransom Knowling who offer the best possible support to their fearless leader. The studio environment diminishes some of the ragged immediacy evident in Nighthawk’s regular street corner renditions of the songs, but the slight bit of extra spit and shine is a small price to pay to be privy to this influential music.