Obviously an impossible question. But ill follow your lead Gold and Run with something a little more popular and sort of main stream and solid. As opposed to a Deep Cut.
Belton Sutherland Blues #2. Recorded by Alan Lomax in Mississippi in 1978. I know no other cut that takes you right back to what W. C. Handy must have felt when he saw that guy at the Tutwiler train station in 1903 or 1904. A deathless groove, all the microtones, and the vocal "mistakes" just make it better. Sutherland was nobody famous, and he looks like he could have died the next day. Even so.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Oct 01, 2016 4:12 AM
Buddy Guy "Let Me Love You" from his album "I Was Walking Thru the Woods" First blues song I ever heard at the age of 10. The hair stood up from my neck, I was hooked
Yeah I have to agree that this is an impossible question so I'll go with one that was important to me as an introduction to the blues in my early deformative years. Somewhere around '61 or '62 when I was about 7 or 8 years old my older brother built a tube amp and hooked up a BSR turntable to an old stereo that before that had been inoperable for as long as I could remember. At that time a pile of LP's showed, castoffs from my brother's collection probably. One record in particular caught my attention, a 1951 recording by the Dukes of Dixieland. It was mostly ragtime sing-along stuff like Bill Bailey etc. BUT...nestled in among the good time banjo pickin' fun stuff was one number that sounded like a funeral dirge. It was dark and foreboding, captivating and persistent. It was the first song I dropped a needle on over and over again. It WAS the blues...it got under my skin and it has been there ever since.
Rather, it's-- Here is the song that I and every other blues lover will say today tomorrow and forever... "This is the greatest blues song."
There is no greatest blues song.
But... Robert Johnson. If you don't love Robert Johnson, you don't love blues. Robert Johnson is the deepest blues singer ever recorded. Here is his greatest blues song:
