New Blues box set from Bear Family, due out October 6, 2023

[mikeweil]

The Memphis Blues Box - Original Recordings 1914–1969 (20-CD Deluxe Box Set)

www.bear-family.de/detail/index/sArticle/568959

pre-order price reduction!

[John L]

That's an interesting release.  I don't know how commercially successful it will be.   Those who are interested in owning all of this music probably already have almost all of it.   For those who are just getting acquainted with it, 20 CDs at this price spanning a huge variety of time periods and styles is probably a bit much.    

[ghost of miles]

Paging Jim Duckworth, paging Jim Duckworth… I might have to set aside a chunk of my 2024 tax refund for this one. Thanks for the heads-up.

Went ahead and pre-ordered. Even with shipping costs from Europe, it was much cheaper than Amazon’s current listed price. 

[Jim Duckworth]

Whoa!  I wholly approve.  There are some worthwhile rarities on this set by Tuff Green, Phinus (sic) Newborn (Newborn family band), Wilbur Steinberg and others.  I can't imagine that there are a lot of people who want a 20 disc set spanning James Reese Europe to Albert King...

I, predictably, want this darn thing.

[Big Beat Steve]

Just rushed through the track listing.
A HUGE lot of pre-war blues. Maybe too much indeed for the average collector of today (provided they can stomach that many jug and hokum tracks which I think still are an acquired taste for many blues purists), particularly those who are in the market for Bear Family boxes and who do NOT already have a lot of it on Document reissues. What is there from the post-war era looks like it relies heavily on Sam Phillips-produced items that he leased to other labels (Modern, Chess, etc.). Again something that many fans of this music may already have (to a more or less large extent) on other reissues.
Still an interesting set - not least of all for those tracks of "white men singing them blues" sprinkled in between. 😁 Basically something I'd hate to have to pass up but ...

Edited August 26, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[Dan Gould]

Color me leaning toward "no," as already noted there are a lot of CDs of an era that pre-dates what I enjoy and I am not sure that there are possibly a lot of tunes from that era (the one I do collect) that would be new.

[Dave Garrett]

On 8/26/2023 at 8:22 AM, ghost of miles said:

Paging Jim Duckworth, paging Jim Duckworth… I might have to set aside a chunk of my 2024 tax refund for this one. Thanks for the heads-up.

Went ahead and pre-ordered. Even with shipping costs from Europe, it was much cheaper than Amazon’s current listed price. 

You're probably already aware of this, but Bear Family will remove the VAT for international customers who are not subject to it if you ask them to do so. It's been quite a while since I ordered directly from them, and I'd forgotten about this until recently when someone on the Hoffman board mentioned it. 

[Jim Duckworth]

I was not in any way aware of this.  Thank you.

[ghost of miles]

This is now set for a November 13 release.

[ghost of miles]

Just got a shipping notice! This and the new Don Byas Mosaic should give me plenty of new box-set listening and reading material for the next couple of months.