2011 Blues Gift Guide

This is an idea so cool that one wonders why it took so long for someone to come up with it! Aggronautix's "Guitar Gods" bobblehead series launched back in the summer with an uber-cool Johnny Winter figure, a limited-edition 7" poly-resin bobblehead packaged in a multi-panel box. When you push the button on the figure's base, Johnny screams "rock 'n' roll" at ya! Aggronautix has announced two more limited-edition "Guitar Gods" figures in the form of Wayne Kramer (MC5) and James Williamson (The Stooges), both musicians recently named in Rolling Stone magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time." Any of these would make for great shelf-art near your stereo!

After leaving the Rolling Stones, Bill Wyman formed the Rhythm Kings as a forum for the bassist to get together with a few famous friends to put their own spin on old-school blues and R&B music. Over the course of 15 years and five critically-acclaimed albums, Wyman has been joined by an all-star cast of talent like Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton, George Harrison, and many others. The Collector's Edition box is a five-disc set that includes the band's first four albums in their entirety, 66 songs total, featuring both classic covers and period-perfect originals written in the old style.

It's not too late to pick up a Blues Images 2012 calendar for your wall, or the wall of a loved one! This annual blues datebook features a different bit of historic, vintage advertising artwork on the page of each month, as well as important dates like artist's birthdays. This year's calendar also includes a nineteen-track CD that offers up remastered blues tunes from the 1920s by folks like Charley Patton, Blind Blake, Ida Cox, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, as well as rare tracks from Blind Joel Taggart, Lane Hardin, and Jenny Pope. Blues Images also sells some way cool posters of vintage blues artwork.

There are just a couple of blues music print publications available for fans to expand their knowledge and enjoyment of the music (beyond About.com Blues, of course). Although they all have their charms, I personally prefer the long-running Blues Revue for my ink and paper fix. Blues Revue provides great blues and roots music coverage, in-depth artist interviews, even song notation for those who want to play the blues themselves. Plus, subscribers receive several sampler CDs each year of new music. Full disclosure: the Reverend is a contributor to Blues Revue, but I've also been a subscriber for years.

Daniel Beaumont's Preachin' The Blues is the first biography written about Delta blues legend Son House and represents the definitive work on this complex and haunting artist. A lively, energetic writer, Beaumont spins an entertaining narrative that is long on details without ever becoming boring or mundane. Most of all, Beaumont writes at length about the music of the great Son House, introducing the newcomer to the passion and fury of this legendary artist, as well as providing enough new perspective on House's work to satisfy the longtime fan.

A deluxe five-album vinyl box, Blues collects three of Eric Clapton's best blues-rock titles into one awesome set. The box includes 1994's From The Cradle on two platters, packaged in a double gatefold sleeve, featuring covers of classic Willie Dixon, Freddie King, and Muddy Waters songs; 2000's Riding With The King, the guitarist's award-winning collaboration with the great B.B. King, also packaged in a double gatefold; and 2004's Me and Mr. Johnson, Clapton's tribute to the Robert Johnson songbook. All the albums are pressed in quality 180-grain vinyl. While I've often criticized Clapton for his frequent lapses into languid soft-rock, these three show a lot of the same fire and brimstone that fueled the guitarist's work with the Yardbirds, John Mayall, and Cream.

This fantastic four-CD box set features 94 vintage Howlin' Wolf songs, including tracks originally recorded by Sun Records' Sam Phillips at his legendary Memphis studio and later licensed to Chess Records. It was upon the Wolf's arrival in Chicago in 1953, however, that the singer's legacy began, and it was the collaboration between Wolf and the great blues songwriter, producer, and performer Willie Dixon that resulted in a wealth of Chicago blues gems. They're all here in this box, including a bunch of Wolf rarities, and a 45-page booklet with many rare photos and two sets of liner notes, by Peter Guralnick and Dick Shurman.

If you or the person you're buying gifts for is a fan of the late, beloved guitarist Jeff Healey, look no further than Full Circle: The Live Anthology to fill your list. This mini-box set includes three CDs and a DVD documenting live performances from three distinct eras of the guitarist's too-short career. The audio portion includes a 1989 performance from the Montreal Jazz Festival; a 1991 show from the St. Gallen Open Air Festival in Switzerland; and a 1995 concert from the Hard Rock club in Healey's hometown of Toronto, Ontario Canada. The DVD offers a visual account of the St. Gallen show. This is great stuff, and essential for any fan of blues guitar.

The last couple of years have seen a wealth of releases and reissues delving into the deepest corners of the beloved blues-rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix's archives. The long out of print Winterland features recordings culled from three October 1968 shows at San Francisco's historic Winterland Ballroom, performances in support of the (then) recently-released Electric Ladyland album. Although a single-disc edition of highlights has been released, the four-CD or eight-record vinyl LP box set is the way to go for the hardcore fan, featuring a 36-page booklet with rare photos and an essay from Rolling Stone magazine's David Fricke as well as hours of great music.

This beautiful 240-page hardback book collects all of the illustrations from Robert Crumb's acclaimed "Heroes of the Blues," "Early Jazz Greats" and "Pioneers of Country Music" trading card sets between two covers. A labor of love for the infamous underground cartoonist and collector of antique music, Crumb's heartfelt portraits of his favorite blues, jazz, and country/hillbilly musicians are accompanied by text from writers Stephen Calt and David Jasen. The book includes a CD of "old time" music hand-picked by Crumb himself.

Delta blues legend Robert Johnson was one of the most influential and important artists in the history of the blues, a gifted guitarist and performer whose enigmatic life and brief career has become the stuff of myth. Johnson's entire catalog has been available for years as the two-disc The Complete Recordings. In 2011, however, The Centennial Collection was released as a celebration of what would have been Johnson's 100th birthday, the new set sporting spiffy re-mastered sound, new liner notes from historians Ted Gioia and Stephen C. LaVere, and a lavishly-illustrated CD booklet. These are the songs upon which modern blues and rock music was built, and a good place for both the newcomer and veteran blues fan to begin their journey into the music.