Ironically, it took a European record company to compile The Memphis Blues Box, one of the most impressive and essential collections of American music you’ll ever find. Still, it would be difficult to imagine a label more suited to the task than Germany’s Bear Family, which is world-famous for its gargantuan and definitive anthologies, such as the 13-disc …Next Stop Is Vietnam/The War on Record: 1961–2008 and the 10-disc The Bakersfield Sound 1940–1994.
A note from compiler and curator Martin Hawkins says it took 13 years to assemble The Memphis Blues Box. You’ll believe that when you see it. One can only imagine the time and effort needed to track down the 534 vinyl and pre-vinyl singles in this 20-CD anthology, released in 4Q 2023, many of which are rare; garner permissions to use them; and restore the audio to the point where the lion’s share of these vintage recordings sound as if they were made last week.
Then there’s the set’s LP-sized, 360-page hardcover book, for which Bear Family gathered nearly 900 photos and illustrations, many previously unpublished, plus profiles of every artist and discographic information and notes on every track. Also in the book are many insightful essays with titles like “Memories of Blues and Beale,” “The Golden Age of the Independent Record Companies,” and “The Story of Furry Lewis.” The music has a playing time of more than 25 hours, and it will undoubtedly take you even longer to digest everything in the book.
While the text and photos are terrific, the CDs are, of course, the main attraction here. And what an attraction they are! Memphis is widely known as the “home of the blues,” but it also played a role in the development of rockabilly, soul, jazz, country, jug band and R&B; in addition, it is where Sam Phillips helped to launch the careers of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and other prominent early rockers. You’ll hear elements of all those styles in this box.
However, compiler Hawkins had to set some parameters to limit the anthology to a mere 20 CDs. The goal, he says in an introduction to the book, was to “present the music of Memphis that was recorded and marketed as blues in its day, year on year.” As such, he notes, the program includes some early jazz and R&B, hillbilly blues and rockabilly but not blues recordings made outside the Memphis area by Memphis-related composers and musicians. While Robert Johnson was partly raised in the city, for example, he mostly recorded elsewhere and is therefore not featured. Still, the box—whose subtitle is Original Recordings First Released on 78s and 45s, 1914-1969—is mindbogglingly comprehensive: it credibly claims to include “at least one side of every relevant single disc” issued during the covered period.
Though the material is mostly arranged chronologically, the program opens with some spoken 1952 memories from W.C. Handy, the self-described Father of the Blues. Then come recordings from early in the last century by Handy, the Memphis Jug Band, Williamson’s Beale Street Frolic Orchestra, and other pioneers. Nineteen discs later, the musical journey ends with late-’60s efforts by such artists as Ike and Tina Turner, Albert King, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Junior Parker.
Those aren’t the only names here that blues fans will recognize. For example, the set includes 14 tracks from B.B. King, 12 from Howlin’ Wolf, 20 from Memphis Minnie, four from Bukka White, 10 from Rufus Thomas and 12 from Sleepy John Estes. A few early Sun Records efforts by Presley and Perkins are here, too.
But have you heard of the Swift Jewel Cowboys, whose fine 1939 recording of Handy’s “Memphis Blues” seems influenced by New Orleans Dixieland jazz? How about Billy Garner’s raunchy 1961 rendition of “Little School Girl,” Billy Love’s sax-spiced “You’re Gonna Cry,” or Cannon’s Jug Stompers’ 1928 reading of “Viola Lee Blues” (with vocals and harmonica by composer Noah Lewis), which was later recorded by artists ranging from Sonny Boy Williamson to the Grateful Dead? Little-known treasures await your discovery on each of this collection’s 20 discs.
Related: More great Memphis music from the legendary Stax Records
As you might imagine, the price tag for this box is big. The rewards for exploring its contents, however, are far bigger.
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