Blind Willie McTell - The Classic Years 1927-1940

Willie McTell was one of the early-blues greatest guitarists and finest singers. He played a standard 6-string acoustic until the mid 1920s but from the beginning of his recording career in 1927 he used a 12-string in the studio almost exclusively. Unlike virtually every other bluesman who relied on a 12-string for its resonances as a rhythm instrument, McTell displayed a nimble, elegant slide and finger-picking style that made it sound like more than one guitar. He recorded dozens of sides throughout the 1930s under a multitude of names and by 1940 was well known enough that Library of Congress archivist John Lomax felt compelled to record him. Those cuts round off this authoritative 4-CD box set, that opens with his 1927 debut sessions (including his famous Statesboro Blues) and covers all aspects of his '30s recordings, from delightfully raucous ragtime to darker, lonelier sides of the blues.