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Released January 25, 2005

Blind Willie McTell is unique among country bluesmen in having a 30-year recording career while remaining essentially an itinerant musician, and during his lifetime he was a familiar sight on the streets of Atlanta and other Southern cities as he performed his varied repertoire of blues, rags, and vaudeville pieces on his 12-string guitar. This two-disc collection assembles some 50 of his early 78s recorded for the Victor, Columbia, Okeh, Vocalion, and Decca labels between 1929 and 1935 into a two-disc set, although it unfortunately doesn't include a version of his signature tune, the magnificent "Statesboro Blues." Whether McTell actually wrote a lot of these songs (or merely adapted them) is unclear, but there is a sharp writer's eye at work here, and songs like "Dying Crapshooter's Blues" (which is based on elements from "Streets of Laredo" and "St. James Infirmary") are thoroughly modern compositions in a cut-and-paste narrative style. These recordings feature the early McTell, when his voice was still a high and expressive tenor. Toward the end of his life, McTell's voice deepened and grew rougher (no doubt from the effects of years of singing on the streets), the songs slowed down and became much more world-weary, and since he recorded his standards several times over, it is interesting to compare early and later versions of songs like "Broke Down Engine Blues." Georgia Rag is a passable introduction to this unique bluesman, but the absence of "Statesboro Blues" is a definite problem. ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide

TRACKS

1. Atlanta Strut
2. Travelin' Blues
3. Kind Mama
4. Southern Can Is Mine
5. Broke Down Engine Blues
6. Stomp Down Rider
7. Scarey Day Blues
8. Experience Blues
9. Painful Blues
10. Low Rider's Blues
11. Georgia Rag
12. Warm It Up to Me
13. It's Your Time to Worry
14. It's a Good Little Thing
15. You Was Born to Die
16. Dirty Mistreater
17. Savannah Mama
18. Broke Down Engine
19. Love Makin' Mama #1
20. Death Room Blues [#2]
21. Lord Send Me an Angel #1
22. B & O Blues No. 2 #1
23. Bell St. Lightnin'
24. East St. Louis Blues

DISC 2

25. Southern Can Mama
26. Ain't It Grand to Be a Christian
27. We Got to Meet Death One Day
28. Don't Let Nobody Turn You Around
29. I Got Religion, I'm So Glad
30. Dying Gambler
31. God Don't Like It
32. Bell Street Blues
33. Let Me Play With Yo' Yo-Yo
34. Lay Some Flowers on My Grave
35. Ticket Agent Blues
36. Cold Winter Day
37. Your Time to Worry
38. Cooling Board Blues
39. Hillbilly Willie's Blues
40. Boll Weevil
41. Delia
42. Dying Crapshooter's Blues
43. Will Fox
44. I Got to Cross the River Jordan
45. Amazing Grace
46. King Edward Blues
47. Murderer's Home Blues
48. Kill-It-Kid Rag
49. Chainey
50. I Got to Cross the River of Jordan

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