Blues Took Me By The Hand (Retrospective Double Album)

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SORRY – SOLD OUT OF PHYSICAL COPIES

Eddie has shown here that if you have such a huge back catalogue of top quality stuff then the hard bit is deciding what to leave out..superb ..classic bluesPeter Elliott The Blues Man In The Hat

Buy Vol 1 “Acoustic Sessions” Download itunesamazon

Buy Vol 2 “Electric Sessions” Download itunesamazon

Catalogue Number – Blueblood017
Genre: Blues/Blues-Rock/Folk/singer-Songwriter Release Date 1/4/2014

Keynote Review
“Eddie Martin has for twenty five years been one of Britain’s finest blues artists, plus one of the best guitarists. On this compilation Eddie takes a look through his career so far, and takes twenty five choice cuts from his many recordings over those years. One disc is acoustic, the other electric, so we get the best of both worlds. The selection and the sequencing of the track listing is just about perfect, and you do also get two unreleased bonus tracks, so it’s great value for money.

This whole set is blues at it’s very best. The fourteen tracks of acoustic blues is pure class, with backing musicians such as Paddy Milner adding piano together with members of Eddie’s bands over the years on bass and drums. There are several tracks that feature just Eddie himself, his one man band or just guitar, or guitar and harmonica. The songs include ‘Flowers In The Desert’, ‘Keep On Working’,’The Devil’s Joker’, and ‘One Man Band Rag’, which has some superb guitar picking. The added tracks include a great cover of Broonzy’s ‘Key To The Highway, as well as a previously unreleased song ‘Yo Yo Blues’, both recorded live.

The second disc of electric blues is eleven tracks of cherry picked blues, from the opening ‘Play The Blues With Feeling’, full of slide guitar, throuth the more blues groove laden styling of ‘Ice Cream’, again featuring some powerful slide, whether it’s a three piece band, added piano or the full horn section.Songs such as crowd favourites ‘Keep It Natural’, ‘Blue To The Bone’, and ‘The Birds And The Bee’s’. There’s almost an hour of great blues in this disc alone, plus almost the same length from the acoustic set. Overall this is a real deal top release of blues by a master of the genre, an artist who should by rights be filling arenas.

This double release of a twenty five year retrospective is an incredibly fine one “! Blues in Britain, Pete Clack, February 2015

Hear “Volume 1 Acoustic Sessions” in iTunes

Musicians: Eddie Martin: Vocal, National Resophonic, Steel and Nylon-string Guitars, Rack Harmonica and Foot Percussion, Paddy Milner: Piano, Dave Griffiths: Double Bass and Mandolin, Michael Wiedrich: Drums, Marion Dolton: Double Bass.

Hear “Volume 2 Electric Sessions” in iTunes

Musicians: Eddie Martin: Vocal, National Resophonic, Electric and Slide Guitars, Rack Harmonica, John Baggot and Paddy Milner: Piano, Michael Hoddinott, Jimmy “Blue Shoes” Pendleton, Michael Wiedrich and Richard Laws: Drums, Gary Baldwin Hammond, John Paul Gard Keyboard/bass pedals, Marion Dolton, Tony Caddle, Guthrie Kennard: Bass, The Little Big Horns featuring Patsy Gamble on Tenor and Baritone Sax, Julie Kimber on 2nd Tenor Sax, Steve Trigg on trumpet and Andy Gilliams on trombone. Pee Wee Ellis Guest Sax on Track 7, Dick Heckstall-Smith Guest Sax on track 11.

Cover Art by Nicky Knowles

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