Mississippi Blues

Putumayo Presents Mississippi Blues, a musical journey down the Mississippi, from Memphis to New Orleans. The blues was born on the fertile soil that lines the banks of the mighty Mississippi River. Mississippi Blues includes artists who were born and raised near the river, many of whom left when they were adults to establish careers and new styles in Chicago, St. Louis, New York and other cities. Whether they stayed in the region or moved away, all of the artists on Mississippi Blues maintained a close connection to their rural blues traditions.
Mississippi Blues features artists with roots in the lower Mississippi region between Memphis and New Orleans. Innovators like Luther Allison and Ike and Tina Turner took the musical legacy of Robert Johnson and incorporated new regional and musical influences, making individual statements of their own. Geographically, the route extends from the electric sounds made in Chicago by Delta natives, to the sophisticated Memphis stylings of Tennessee's Bobby "Blue" Bland, to the river's final destination in Louisiana, where guitarist Chris Thomas King plays his own brand of blues.
The pool of artists nurtured by the Mississippi River is as wide and vast as the river itself. The cross-section of performers on Mississippi Blues is a distillation of the region's talent, and will lead the listener on a memorable musical voyage that will inspire a fresh look at the beauty and vitality of Mississippi blues. Mississippi Blues features detailed liner notes by respected New Orleans music critic Scott Jordan and images by noted photographer Jack Vartoogian.