Consumer Guide Album

T-Bone Walker: The Best of the Black & White and Imperial Years [Metro Blue, 2005]
Basically, Walker invented electric blues guitar. Everybody from B.B. King on down gives him props. But because he came first, he was also transitional--his single-note solos have less brute color and sustain than those of jazz-hip King or rocking Elmore James, and he croons rather than shouts, perhaps a little too subtly. Or perhaps not. The seminal-by-acclamation Black & White sides are seriously outnumbered here by the Imperials, which feature sax sections. But his warm sound is so consistent that only the specialist audience will care. [Recyclables]