Blues recommendations anyone?

ever hear of Billy Holiday? You couldn't start with better. Anything. She only had a one octave range, but man what she could do with a song...try Light'ning Hopkins/Go'in Away. Belafonte Sings the Blues is another nice one to start with, as well. Beautiful recording and lovely jazz ensemble accompanying him. Notice I'm stopping here. You'll have a list a mile long before the day is through. Oodles of good stuff out there, and you have the audiophools here to give it to you. Happy listening...peace, warren :)

Well, if you're looking not only for names, but a method in which to cover this territory, I would start with Robert Johnson. There is a 2-CD set available of his complete recordings. Blues as we know it today can be said to have started with him. (Not true, of course. Things such as these always evolve in an organic fashion, involving numerous people in various places, often at the same time. But, for simplicity's sake, I can be comfortable with the generalization).
Accompany your listening with some reading, and find out about those who picked up where Robert left off. You'll no doubt then come across all the seminal Blues figures of the 20th century. Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, Little Walter, Elmore James, Junior Wells, Lowell Fulson, Bo Diddley, Buddy Guy, Chuck Berry, and on into the era of Rock and Roll, which owes its start to those pioneers just mentioned.

Enjoy!

Punch in Blues and I'm sure you will be reading peoples suggestions til dawn. One group I will reccomend is Little Charlie and the Night Cats. Their new Cd Nine Lives is killer and if you like that then check out their Night Vision and Straight Up offerings. Good stuff,not a bad song on these three CD's.

There are so many styles of blues that it's impossible to generalize. There's Chicago blues by artists like Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon. Delta blues ... There's acoustic, electric, piano, harp and full band.

If you're coming from rock, Stevie Ray Vaughn would be a start. I started by reading the credits on Zeplin albums.

From jazz, jump blues and Roomful of Blues or Downchild would be a good launch.

More traditional blues can be sampled from any of hundreds of compilation discs until you find a preference.

Mississippi John Hurt is more a "folky" style of the blues. Eric Clapton does some good blues too. Clapton's album "Me and Mr Johnson" is wonderful. He sings blues legend Robert Johnson's songs. Some great music.