This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
One of the reasons the blues remains such a vibrant musical entity is that its songs aren’t cast in stone like, say, classical works. Instead, blues songs are like a shared history, passed on by hand, changing and evolving as they go. In fact, more than any other music (save maybe jazz), blues is based on reinterpretation; every blues artist has played Little Red Rooster, Got My Mojo Workin’, Boom Boom, and so on. These three discs honour that tradition while approaching it from new directions.
Blues collects guitar god Eric Clapton’s ’70s output of covers from his various albums. It’s Slowhand at his finest, playing tribute to Muddy Waters (Blow Wind Blow), Little Walter (Mean Old World) and Elmore James (The Sky Is Crying). There are even a few unreleasead tidbits, like a compelling acoustic reading of the Lead Belly hit Alberta. On the flip side, there’s Blues Power, with other artists covering Clapton. It’s fairly pedestrian, with a few exceptions, like Otis Clay turning Wonderful Tonight into a horn-driven soul ballad, and Bo Diddley taking the unusual step of covering Clapton’s version of Bo’s own Before You Accuse Me — perhaps the ultimate in blues cross-pollination. Finally, the truly inspired Tangled Up In Blues sees Bob Dylan getting the same treatment from the likes of Taj Mahal (It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry), Isaac Hayes (Lay Lady Lay) and R.L. Burnside, who takes Everything Is Broken down to the juke joint and fixes it right up like new. Talk about bringin’ it all back home.
