Chicago/The Blues/Today!

Disc 1
1	Help Me / Junior Wells Chicago Blues Band 4:05
2	It Hurts Me Too (When Things Go Wrong) / Junior Wells Chicago Blues Band 2:44
3	Messin' With the Kid / Junior Wells Chicago Blues Band 2:21
4	Vietcong Blues / Junior Wells Chicago Blues Band 4:57
5	All Night Long (Rock Me Baby) / Junior Wells Chicago Blues Band 3:44
6	Going Ahead / J.B. Hutto 2:03
7	Please Help / J.B. Hutto 2:53
8	Too Much Alcohol / J.B. Hutto 2:29
9	Married Woman Blues / J.B. Hutto 3:06
10	That's the Truth / J.B. Hutto 2:47
11	Marie / Otis Spann 2:27
12	Burning Fire / Otis Spann 3:14
13	S.P. Blues / Otis Spann 2:51
14	Sometimes I Wonder / Otis Spann 3:27
15	Spann's Stomp / Otis Spann 2:19
Disc 2
1	Cotton Crop Blues / James Cotton Blues Band 2:18
2	The Blues Keep Falling / James Cotton Blues Band 4:01
3	Love Me Or Leave / James Cotton Blues Band 3:25
4	Rocket 88 / James Cotton Blues Band 2:02
5	West Helena Blues / James Cotton Blues Band 3:27
6	Everything's Going to Turn Out Alright / Otis Rush 3:52
7	It's a Mean Old World / Otis Rush 2:21
8	I Can't Quit You Baby / Otis Rush 3:14
9	Rock / Otis Rush 3:32
10	It's My Own Fault / Otis Rush 5:55
11	Dust My Broom / Homesick James Williamson 3:15
12	Somebody Been Talkin' / Homesick James Williamson 2:14
13	Set a Date / Homesick James Williamson 2:43
14	So Mean to Me / Homesick James Williamson 2:48
Disc 3
1	One More Time / Johnny Young 2:26
2	Kid Man Blues / Johnny Young 2:59
3	My Black Mare / Johnny Young 3:40
4	Stealin' Back / Johnny Young 3:17
5	I Got Mine in Time / Johnny Young 4:18
6	Tighten Up On It / Johnny Young 3:09
7	Dynaflow Blues / Johnny Shines 2:34
8	Black Spider Blues / Johnny Shines 3:02
9	Layin' Down My Shoes and Clothes / Johnny Shines 2:27
10	If I Get Lucky / Johnny Shines 3:23
11	Rockin' My Boogie / Big Walter Horton 3:26
12	Mr. Boweevil / Johnny Shines 3:10
13	Hey, Hey / Johnny Shines 2:21

Barnes & Noble

In 1966, when the folk label Vanguard issued the three-album series Chicago: The Blues Today!, it was as if somebody had opened the back door to a blues club deep inside the Windy City’s South Side and let thousands of college kids sneak a peek at the party going on inside. Here was electric music that took then back to the wellspring of rock 'n' roll's power and excitment. For many it was the first time hearing Muddy Waters’s sidemen such as Jr. Wells, Otis Spann and Buddy Guy with their own bands, or such regional favorites as J. B. Hutto and Homesick James and his Dusters; or country blues transplants including Johnny Young and Johnny Shines. For a burgeoning 60’s youth culture, the awakening was divine.

Now those electric blues insiders can permanently store away these worn down album grooves with the slightly mildewed covers, and a new generation can discover the timeless sounds of Chicago's second blues wave because Vanguard has reissued all three Chicago: The Blues Today!, albums. This lovely set retains producer Sam Charters’s original liner notes, as well as his wife Ann Charters’s photo of the snow-covered El, which still graces the cover, a symbol of the long trek African-Americans made from the poverty of the rural South to the industrialized North that promised a living wage, racial equality and brick housing projects with indoor plumbing.

The zest of this new life is reflected on disc one in the squeal of Junior Wells’s blues harp at the opening of "All Night Long." Wells's piquant solo is followed by some nasty guitar work from his then-partner Buddy Guy. J. B. Hutto’s big voice shouts out from the fields and Southern black churches in "Help Me," while his slide guitar rings with remembrances of the night before in "Too Much Alcohol." Muddy Waters’s piano man Otis Spann, accompanied only by bassist S.Pl Leary, fills the dance floor in the instrumental "Marie," his playing sassy, but so deep in the barrelhouse tradition that it smells like cheap perfume. Then Spann slows things down to tell of the things a man will do for a woman in "Burning Fire."

Disc two opens with harpist James Cotton’s classic shuffle "Cotton Crop Blues." He blows and howls like a hurricane in this tale of leaving the cotton fields behind, then tells of the loneliness in his new life on "The Blues Keep Falling." Guitarist Otis Rush checks in with a chickin’ pickin’ instrumental cover of "Everything’s Going to Turn Out Alright" and the burning blues of his signature tune "I Can’t Quit You Baby." Homesick James and his Dusters have a country-fied sound with his slide guitar floating like mist over the crossroads in "Dust My Broom."

Guitar and mandolin player Johnny Young’s band gets raunchy in "One More Time," disc three’s opening track. Then the rough-hewn guitar work and vibrato-laden singing of Johnny Shines returns the set to the country in "Dynaflow Blues." Two champion blues harp players, Big Walter Horton and Memphis Charlie Musselwhite team up for double harmonica duty in the gentle "Rockin’ My Boogie."

Though "Chicago blues" has become a catch-all phrase, the music on Chicago: The Blues Today!, has as many flavors as a witch doctor’s gumbo. From earthy to ethereal, the music captures not just a taste of Chicago in the ‘60s, but the whole palate. Dig in. Roberta Penn

All Music Guide

In early 1966, blues history was made with the issuance of a three-volume set of new recordings produced by blues historian Samuel Charters. This series was known as Chicago/The Blues/Today! and the release sent shock waves through the world of rock & roll. Every artist on the three volumes had recorded before (some, like Otis Rush and Junior Wells, had actually seen small hits on the R&B charts), but these recordings were largely their introduction to a newer -- and predominately white -- album-oriented audience. The "Today!" part of the title was no bit of hyperbole, either. This series accurately portrayed a vast cross section of the Chicago blues scene as one could hear it on any given night in the mid-'60s. Rather than record full albums (which Charters had neither the budget nor the legal resources to pull off), each artist simply came in for a union-approved session of four to six songs, with each volume featuring three different groupings. With these recordings, blues suddenly gained respectability as something much more vital and vibrant than just a poor cousin of jazz. A new market for this music began, one that exists today in full blossom. Their effect on musicians was enormous. It's fair to assume that most blues-influenced artists had all three volumes in their respective collections, and the songs on them ended up in the repertoires of everyone from Jimi Hendrix (Junior Wells' "Rock Me") to Led Zeppelin (a note-for-note copy of Otis Rush's "I Can't Quit You Baby") to Steppenwolf (Junior Wells' "Messin' with the Kid") and beyond. These recordings have stayed in print and have been reasonably good sellers over the years since their original release, all coming out on compact disc. This new packaging puts all three volumes together, but with no bonus tracks, as no extras were recorded for these sessions.

So if one already owns these sides, what's the incentive this time around? That's easy: the sound is massively improved, with the bass that was rolled off the vinyl and original CD versions now being restored. This makes the tracks truly come alive, especially on the Otis Rush and Junior Wells sides, both fortified with some major amounts of badass bass thumping by Roger Jones and Jack Myers, respectively. One can really hear the spaciousness of the old RCA studios where this stuff was cut for the first time, and the detailing of the mix is in sharp focus throughout, although the increased bass causes some unwanted distortion on the Homesick James Williamson tracks. The other plus is the new packaging, which features a nice booklet with detailed, updated notes from Charters, a nice appreciation from Ed Ward, and absolutely eye-boggling session photos taken by Charters' wife, Ann, that alone are worth the price of the set. With the glut of blues reissues out there, it is often a coin toss regarding where best to spend your hard-earned money. Even if you still have the original vinyl or CDs, this is one of the times when it would be best to spend the dough and add this one to your collection, because blues records seldom come as important, innovative, or just plain pleasurable to listen to as this set. File under "essential." Cub Koda