Well, blues is more my thing but I like Jazz too.
One real gem (allthough some of his stuff is singing-based) is a guy called Lonnie Johnson (from the 20s and 30s!) who could play jazz and blues proficiently. Check out some of his sides like Mr Johnson's Blues, Four Hands Are Better Than Two, Blue Ghost Blues, Winnie the Wailer, Guitar Blues etc... mix of a lot of old styles. Django Rheinhardt is about the best blues guitarist from that time AND generally no singing on much of his stuff... You should definitely look him up. Also give Charlie Christian a try, another who could play just about any style with great skill, a massive influence on BB King (blues) and just about every jazz guitarist since. Of the more modern people, George Benson is another who is more jazzy but a good guitarist, and Pat Metheny is liked by a lot of jazz people though his stuff is a bit wacky and experimental for my ears.
If you really want to get to the "source", check out some of the real old blues players... Some of this stuff is not easy on the ear for most folks but once you get into it it can be a fascinating journey. A lot of that music from the 20s right up into the folk-blues "rediscoveries" of the 50s and 60s is really rhythm-driven, kinda like metal in a way, and pretty good guitar playing too, those early guys had to get round the technical deficiencies of the poor recording facilities available, like of amplification, and cheap accoustic guitars to produce something good. Robert Johnson (who reportedly sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads in Mississippi, returning a couple of years after being laughed out of a juke joint for his crappy guitar playing to amaze everyone with his style) is one a lot of people say is the best player, though to be honest he is far from my favourite. I like Mississippi Fred McDowell (his earliest records pre-1969 when he first picked up an electric guitar are the best, but the stuff afterwards is good too... Again, extremely based on rhythm and timing and sharp playing, he also could play a mean lead with a slide on the bottom strings while hammering out the rhythm on the top ones, check out "Shake 'Em On Down", "You Gotta Move", my favourite "Red Cross Store" from his 1967 sessions with Johnny Woods on harmonica, and tunes like "John Henry" and "Baby Please Don't Go", old blues standards). Also highly recommended are Bukka White (again pretty hard on the ear for some), Charlie Patton and Blind Lemon Jefferson (both reeeeally old and thus not great recordings, probably the two most important founding figures of old blues, and thus very relevant to modern music), Blind Willie Johnson (incredible slide player and unearthly singer, but beware that 75% of his stuff is weedy rubbish, but the remainder, "I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole", "Dark Was The Night", "Motherless Children Have A Hard Time", "If I Had My Way I'd Tear The Building Down" are great).
Coming a bit more modern, the best early electric guitar player and a guy who developed a lot of the language of modern playing was T-Bone Walker, again a blues player but his style is a lot more jazzy. My favourites from the 50s and 60s are mostly from chicago, though - Chess Records came out with some great stuff in this era which basically slightly predated and then fed into the modern rock and roll and rock sounds. Muddy Waters is great, fantastic tight band and some good musicians, he can play a good slide guitar himself (though from what I can tell he had basically one solo that he used on about 20 different songs lol), some of his later re-recrodings of his old tracks are REALLY good; check out "King Bee", "Long Distance Call" and albums like Hard Again, along with his standards (some of which have been covered hundreds of times) like Mannish Boy (I love this one live), Hoochie Coochie Man, She's Nineteen Years Old etc. All this stuff has to be played LOUD btw. Howling Wolf is another good artist from that era, his guitar player hubert sumlin was very talented, and some of his cuts are great... you will remember "Smokestack Lightning" if you're old enough to have seen the commercial it was on about 10-15 years back, Hidden Charms, Wang Dang Doodle (earlier played better by Koko Taylor), Moaning at Midnight, Evil, all classics.
Other than BB King, who again has some jazz influences, the best of the more modern (i.e. post-60s) blues guitarists are (and you should try all these guys, they are all great!) Albert King, Albert Collins and the brilliant Buddy Guy. Kings guitar on Born Under A Bad Sign, I'll Play The Blues For You and the album Live Wire Blues Power (a live one from the 70s), really top class. Collins was a lot more rough and ready, I'm not as bothered about his album work and don't rate his singing much but he could really play live, check out any of his stuff that has the word "live" next to it. Buddy Guy is simply legendary, and seems to get better and better with age. If the old country blues stuff does nothing for you cos of the poor sound quality, check out "Blues Singer", his latest, which is very much in that style with nodds to a lot of old artists. However, he's at his best electrified... Anything he's played live with be absolutely knock-out in the last 25 years, and I think one you REALLY should check out, perhaps before any other blues stuff, if you like that rhythmic heavy sound that you get in metal, is "Sweet Tea", an album of old swamp and mountain blues stuff set to his distorted guitar; some of them stomp along with a lot of energy and power, his playing on some of the blues stuff is sensational and I love the simple rhythm section, "Please Don't Leave Me" is my favourite off this record. He did some good stuff on his 80s and 90s records too, check out "Slippin' In" (think this has a different name but that is an alternative), "Love Her With a Feeling" (superhuman blues solo on that one), "Black Night", "Mustang Sally", "Love Me Baby", "Damn Right I Got The Blues", and his nod to Muddy in "she's nineteen years old".
Well that's a lot to go on isn't it

for pure blues guitar with no vocals may I also recommend the sensational Ronnie Earl, recognised as perhaps the best pure guitar player around but some find his stuff a bit dull cos it's a lot of soloing and not a lot of song

. Eric Clapton can play but personally I can't stand most of his easy-listening take on blues music... This for me is music to chug down some cold beers and turn up the volume, I always think that to listen to most clapton stuff (except for the excellent "Crossroads" by Cream and some of his stuff with Buddy Guy) it's more like half a shot of whiskey and a pair of slippers music. Oh, and if you like good fun stuff that's not too serious but with some pretty vicious slide playing, Hound Dog Taylor (who himself is heavily influenced by 50s stalwarts Elmore James and Robert Nighthawk) is great. His Live "Beware Of The Dog" album is blues at it's most stompable and sweaty, taken from a chicago club date back in the 60s some time I believe.
I think that just about covers most of my favourites... I was going to throw in John Lee Hooker but he's done so much stuff with lots of other people it's hard to know what to recommend, his early 60s stuff is good and some of the remake versions in the 90s with other artists are great too.... His album "Boom Boom" (The one that has the track "Boogie at Russian Hill" on the back; there are a lot of Hooker compilations out called boom boom as it was his most famous song) is my favourite. That guy could melt paint with that gravelly voice, some of his songs can be pretty violent with that, and he could play too, in a style that's quite dissimilar to a lot of other guys. Of his old tunes "I cover the waterfront" is amazing but i don't know if it's what you're looking for, the remake version with van morrison on it from his "Mr Lucky" album is perhaps even better.
If you can find any of his stuff then Martin Simpson is an amazing contemporary guitar player who does the best remakes of blues tunes i've just about ever heard. Maybe not your taste though, and all accoustic.
OK well i've spent far too much time on this... You'll see that if you get me started on music that I'll still be talking about it in about a fortnight's time lol, even worse than poker I think...
If you like any of the blues stuff or any particular artists i can point you in the direction of similar stuff or let you know other good ones to check out, let me know how you get on!
Monk
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