Hudson Whittaker, better known as Tampa Red, was a hugely prolific and influential blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, an innovative slide guitarist and the first black musician to play a National steel-bodied guitar.

Moving from Florida to Chicago in the 1920s, he started recording in 1928 with Thomas Dorsey, playing in a hokum style as well as blues, over the years incorporating a pop-oriented style with The Chicago Five. Playing electric guitar from the 1940s working with Big Maceo Merriweather, he influenced musicians like Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters and Elmore James, as his Chicago home became a centre for the blues community. This 121-track, 5CD, set comprises selected recordings from the 300 and more titles he released during this era on the Vocalion, Bluebird & RCA-Victor labels, as Tampa Red, Tampa Red & Georgia Tom, Tampa Red's Hokum Jug Band and Tampa Red And The Chicago Five, referred to on many of his record labels as “The Guitar Wizard”.

It features his R&B hits It Hurts Me Too/When Things Go Wrong With You, Pretty Baby Blues, Let Me Play With Your Poodle, and Detroit Blues, and many well-known songs that were precursors of rock ‘n’ roll. It includes numbers with Black Bob, Sonny Boy Williamson, Joe Williams, Big Maceo Merriweather, Blind John Davis, Ransom Knowling, Walter Horton and Sonny Boy Williamson II.

He was “rediscovered” in the blues revival of the late 1950s, like many other surviving early-recorded blues artists, such as Son House and Skip James. It’s a substantial overview of a key quarter-century of his career, and an entertaining showcase for one of the most significant personalities in the genre.

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