Consumer Guide Album

The Rough Guide to Hillbilly Blues [World Music Network, 2017]
Be aware of a superior if barely findable alternative: the expertly annotated 1993 Columbia/Legacy double-CD White Country Blues (1926-1938): A Lighter Shade of Blue, which splits 50 tracks among 31 artists who include nine of the 25 here, four with repeats that deserve it. But this is a viable substitute, less for its songs (especially with two standouts also on 2015's more useful Rough Guide to Blues Songsters) than for the fancy picking where most of these fellas claim bragging rights--rags and jigs, a "bluegrass twist" and even a "fandango." Also check talking blues pioneer's Chris Bouchillon's light-blue comedy routine "Born in Hard Luck," which took me half a dozen plays to start wearing out the way skits do. And don't forget Walter Smith's "The Cat's Got the Measles and the Dog's Got the Whooping Cough" because it's a losing battle--the thing implanted itself in my head for a week. B+