I have been collecting and studying music of all types ever since I got my first record player at age 8. Now after attending hundreds of concerts, collecting and listening to thousands of LPs, CDs and videos, I have developed an insider's understanding of music and musicians that I try to convey in my reviews. Having been a working musician for 20 plus years has made me aware of the musician's point of view.

Leon McEntire

The reviews on Delta Pickin's cover both new releases and older recordings in a wide variety of genres. Considering the Blues is evident in almost every style of Popular music, here you will find reviews of discs I love along with the essentials I think everyone should have in their collection. It is my desire that the music you find here will enrich your soul as it does mine. The Blues had a baby and they named it Rock and Roll. Gospel and the Blues got together and they called it Soul. Anyone who agrees with these remarks will love the music that I review. If you do not, then I will try to guide you towards the music that matters to me and let you make up your own mind.

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It was becoming sort of a common practice during the late '60's and early '70's for the elder Blues statesmen to record LP's with the younger rock stars whom they were in a large part responsible for and who were in awe of them with some expectedly various results. With the exception of "The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions", most were found to be lacking due to fact that so little common ground was actually shared by the unusual pairings. Muddy Waters and Johnny Winter would be the other combination that I can think of that really made the most of the Blues explosion and they gave us 4 amazing LP's before Muddy's death.

Hooker'N'Heat was another rare notable exception to this rule. The team of Hooker and Canned Heat frequently played gigs together live and recorded together during what was a brief yeomanship for the boogie band. We get the best of both worlds on this release as well since the first CD is mostly Hooker playing and stomping out his mean and hypnotic solo style that got this all started in the first place. Canned Heat shines on the second CD and they do an admirable job of hanging in there with the King of Boogie.

This material has been in my collection ever since I began to become interested in more than just the usual music that was doled out on the radio back in the day and has been cememted in some form to whatever format of music playback device I owned since I saw Canned Heat when they played in Trumann, Arkansas in the early '80's. Ok, so I admit that there is a bit of an emotional attachment to this one.