Chess records has pulled another coup. Before we had fully digested the vintage blues offered in the first six volumes of their re-issue series, here come five more tempting collections. These will certainly drive the enterprising post-war blues boot-leggers up the walls — Chess this time devotes whole albums to the work of the legendary Jimmy Rogers, the tragic J. B. Lenoir, the progressive Lowell Fulson, the early, inventive Buddy Guy and caps it all with a fascinating collection of fourteen cuts entitled "Drop Down Mama," all vintage 1949-53, featuring Robert Nighthawk and Floyd Jones.

While all five albums are noteworthy and definite necessities for even the mildly serious blues collector, a couple stand out from the rest. The J. B. Lenoir set for one—Chess never really promoted the surprisingly topical blues of Lenoir enough—is thus the first J. B. Lenoir album available in the US, and it will go down as one of the tragic ironies of the blues that it occurs three years after his unfortunate death. Included here is his original "Eisenhower Blues," which was officially banned by the White House in 1956, his vibrant "Korea Blues" and "I'm In Korea" along with the deep "Let Me Die With the One I Love." Lenoir managed to effectively combine Lightning Hopkins' satire with an effervescence reminiscent of Elmore James.

While Lenoir never made it nationally (he was dead before the onslaught of B.B. King and Muddy Waters in the various Fillmores) he was one of the most popular and exciting practitioners in the Chicago small-club scene from the late Fifties until his demise. His rhythms and tunes are often similar, but the refinements he is able to coax out of his "Mama, Talk To Your Daughter" theme, for example, are truly amazing. He was at the height of his creative powers when the blues were at an ebb in this country, and he was actually more well-known and respected in Europe when he died. In the last years of his life he only managed weekend gigs while working as a janitor at the University of Chicago.

The other-illuminating album is the Lowell Fulson set which is mostly composed of vintage mid-Fifties Checker sides. In 1954, after having recorded for nearly a dozen small West Coast blues labels, Fulson had his biggest hit with his first Checker release—the classic "Reconsider Baby." A number of fine, often un-heralded singles followed over the years. The best of them appear here. From the oppressive "Trouble, Trouble" to the turgid "Low Society," the undertow of this veteran bluesman is impressive. Throughout, Fulson's vocals and stinging guitar-work are unique, frequently jazz-inspired in their relationship to the horns that he has lately favored on his Kent recordings. It is difficult to believe that cuts like "I Still Love You" or "Check Yourself" were recorded in 1955-57. And, for those of you who want to hear where Paul Butterfield got his vocal style, listen to Fulson sing "Tolling Bells." In fact, Butterfield's current band sounds pretty close to Fulson's basic unit on this record. It is gratifying that Chess has finally gotten a whole album of Fulson on the market.

The others in this series speak for themselves. The Rogers sides have been too long in coming — he was one of the original Muddy Waters sidemen and these sides were recorded after various Waters sessions—Muddy appears as a sideman on nearly half the cuts. The Buddy Guy album is, to me, the only Guy album worth buying. Guy was at the apogee of his power when he recorded for Chess and has been mightily diluted and commercialized ever since. The anthology album contains some of the rarest, most developmental material available in the Chess archives. If you want to hear some of the minor, sparsely-recorded blues practitioners of the late forties (with the likes of Little Walter, Jimmy Rogers and Willie Dixon as sidemen) give this one a listen.

All in all, this series (twenty-five more are forthcoming) will present and handsomely document (the covers and artwork are all superb) the heavy role that this long-independent Chicago-based label had in the blues' development in this country. Ask the Mayalls, the Winters or the Stones where their music comes from and Chess will be the answer. (RS 63)

GARY VON TERSCH