Signature is a typically engaging release from Charlie Musselwhite. The harpist runs through a set of modern blues, complete with jazz and funk overtones -- indeed, there are two straight jazz instrumentals, "Catwalk" and "What's New?," which showcase his astonishing technique. Not only is Musselwhite in fine form, his band is tight, soulful, and sympathetic, making Signature a worthwhile listen for most blues fans. ~ Thom Owens, All Music Guide

This may be a fairly solid overview of Musselwhite's career (from the late '60s to the present -- with some previously unreleased tracks, including the title cut), but it is not the best introduction to the artist. For that, his Vanguard '60s output is still recommended, along with the 1984 session on Blue Rock'it and Alligator's In My Time. Fine stuff, though. ~ Dan Forte, All Music Guide

This may be a fairly solid overview of Musselwhite's career (from the late '60s to the present -- with some previously unreleased tracks, including the title cut), but it is not the best introduction to the artist. For that, his Vanguard '60s output is still recommended, along with the 1984 session on Blue Rock'it and Alligator's In My Time. Fine stuff, though. ~ Dan Forte, All Music Guide

This ten-cut compilation is representative of the earliest recordings by Charlie Musselwhite as a solo act who led his own bands after coming out from under the shadows of his Delta and Chicago mentors. Everything here has been released before and the previous two compilations of his work on Vanguard featured more than half of this material. For reasons of accuracy -- and since the label couldn't see its way clear to tell consumers which albums these tunes came from -- the version of Duke Pearson's "Christo Redemptor," is the original, shorter version from his 1967 debut, Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's Southside Band, not the 11-plus-minute banger from the Tennessee Woman disc with Skip Rose on piano. There isn't a weak cut in the bunch, and Musselwhite recorded for Vanguard for only three years and issued three albums. There are two other compilations of the material form this period that are recommended over this one: The Blues Never Die, released in 1994, and Best of the Vanguard from 2000. Each costs a bit more, but double the tracks. This is great as far as it goes and serves as a cheap introduction, but that's all. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

Vanguard may have spelled his name wrong (he prefers Charlie or Charles), but the word was out as soon as this solo debut was released: Here was a harpist every bit as authentic, as emotional, in some ways as adventuresome, as Paul Butterfield. Similarly leading a Chicago band with a veteran Black rhythm section (Fred Below on drums, Bob Anderson on bass) and rock-influenced soloists (keyboardist Barry Goldberg, guitarist Harvey Mandel), Musselwhite played with a depth that belied his age -- only 22 when this was cut! His gruff vocals were considerably more affected than they would become later (clearer, more relaxed), but his renditions of "Help Me," "Early in the Morning," and his own "Strange Land" stand the test of time. He let his harmonica speak even more authoritatively on instrumentals like "39th and Indiana" (essentially "It Hurts Me Too" sans lyrics) and "Cha Cha the Blues," and his version of jazz arranger Duke Pearson's gospel-tinged "Cristo Redentor" has become his signature song -- associated with Musselwhite probably more so than with trumpeter Donald Byrd, who originally recorded the song for Blue Note. Goldberg is in fine form (particularly on organ), but Mandel's snakey, stuttering style really stands out -- notably on "Help Me," his quirky original "4 P.M.," and "Chicken Shack," where he truly makes you think your record is skipping. ~ Dan Forte, All Music Guide

Ostensibly an instructional blues harp album (with an exhaustive accompanying book penned by Charlie), this is emotional and listenable rather than academic. Charlie covers a wide range of blues styles (and harp positions), and ventures to the outer fringes of the genre for the instrumentals "Hard Times" (from Ray Charles's sax man David "Fathead" Newman) and his Latin original "Azul Para Amparo" (backed only by guitarist Sam Mitchell). The English studio band is sympathetic, especially pianist Bob Hall. ~ Dan Forte, All Music Guide

Ostensibly an instructional blues harp album (with an exhaustive accompanying book penned by Charlie), this is emotional and listenable rather than academic. Charlie covers a wide range of blues styles (and harp positions), and ventures to the outer fringes of the genre for the instrumentals "Hard Times" (from Ray Charles's sax man David "Fathead" Newman) and his Latin original "Azul Para Amparo" (backed only by guitarist Sam Mitchell). The English studio band is sympathetic, especially pianist Bob Hall. ~ Dan Forte, All Music Guide

Charlie Musselwhite continues his prolific four-decade career jumping over to Telarc for his first album of the millennium after spending the '90s recording for Alligator and Virgin. A recap of his formative Memphis roots, Musselwhite receives substantial assistance from guests Robben Ford on guitar (Musselwhite provided Ford with his first gigs when the guitarist was in his late teens), Texas vocalist Kelly Willis, and guitarist/mandolin player Marty Stuart; the last two bring a rootsy, laid back country feel to the album that effectively fuses the swampy C&W, R&B, and blues of Memphis into a cohesive statement. Musselwhite blows unamplified harp on every track, but it's his weathered, understated vocals that infuse these songs with down-home charm. Covers from Jimmy Reed, Los Lobos (the album takes its title from their "One Time One Night"), Ivory Joe Hunter, and Kieran Kane flow beautifully into each other as the artist masterfully blurs the lines between genres. He tears into Johnny Cash's "Big River" like it was a Chicago blues classic and retells his own childhood in the affecting original "Blues Overtook Me." He and producer Randy Labbe generate a Creedence-styled swamp vibe on the opening "Trail of Tears," with both Willis and Christine Ohlman chiming in on gripping backing vocals that set the atmosphere. But the album resonates most effectively on the sparsest tracks. "Ain't It Time" exudes a resigned, almost gospel feel in its achingly slow groove, and "In Your Darkest Hour," another Musselwhite original, shimmers with just harp and T-Bone Wolk's spooky walking bass creating a foggy mood that envelopes the listener. Not just a fresh start at a new label, this album is a sentimental and sincere recap of Musselwhite's influences and a stirring listen throughout. ~ Hal Horowitz, All Music Guide

The 14 performances on Memphis Charlie include some loose live sides and even a taste of slide guitar from Musselwhite. They're the work of a more mature artist than the brash kid on Stand Back. ~ All Music Guide, All Music Guide

By this time Charlie was confident enough to include four acoustic guitar vehicles -- one ("Baby Please Don't Go") with overdubbed harp, one ("I'll Get a Break") from his old pal Will Shade of the Memphis Jug Band. The ensemble numbers feature a German backup band with expatriate Jim Kahr on guitar. A more expansive workout (than the Chicago BlueStars' version) on "Coming Home Baby" is nice, and "Cristo Redentor" (Charlie's fourth recording of the song, this time subtitled "Slight Return") gets a beautiful piano-harp duet treatment. Unfortunately the proceedings are sabotaged by completely inappropriate engineering -- mechanical-sounding drums, tons o-reverb, way too much high-end. Ouch! ~ Dan Forte, All Music Guide

Drummer/label head Pat Ford reunited with Charlie and brought along brother Robben on guitar, producing this return to form. Charlie is up to the task in all departments -- singing, playing (great tone), and especially songwriting (the title tune and "Seemed Like the Whole World Was Crying," and inspired by Muddy Waters's death) -- but it had been a while since Robben had played lowdown blues (touring with Joni Mitchell, putting in countless hours in L.A. studios). Pianist Clay Cotten is in fine form, and it may have been wiser to give the guitar chair to Tim Kaihatsu, who by this time had seniority (in terms of hours on the bandstand with Musselwhite) over any of Charlie's alumni. The to-be-expected-by-now deviations this time out: Don & Dewey's "Stretchin' Out," an impressive chromatic harp rendering of "Exodus," and Charlie's solo guitar outing, "Baby-O." Easily Charlie's best-engineered album (nice job, Greg Goodwin). ~ Dan Forte, All Music Guide

This is Charlie Musselwhite captured at what he does best: performing in front of an appreciative audience backed up by a couple of friends in a casual atmosphere. Musselwhite is joined by Bob Hall on piano and guitarist Dave Peabody on this acoustic recording from London's Indigo label. Musselwhite picked songs he grew up listening to and learned firsthand from blues legends he performed with on Chicago's South side, like Big Walter "Shakey" Horton ("Need My Baby") and Little Walter ("Everybody Need Somebody"). Musselwhite's voice and harp playing are in excellent form on these performances recorded in 1986 while touring through Europe. Up and Down the Highway is highly recommended. ~ Al Campbell, All Music Guide

On 1999's Continental Drifter, king harmonicat Charlie Musselwhite began stretching the boundaries of his Delta blues' heart to embrace music that encompassed the emotional and organic range of blues music without adhering to a strict formula. In that case, it was Cuban son; on 2002's One Night in America, it was roots country and Americana. In both cases, the blues were the root and the destination, but by winding in these other sounds, Musselwhite's blues heritage became more, not less organic; it was more deeply rooted in the soul of the Americas at large. On Sanctuary, Musselwhite's reach extends back to the blues from the Mississippi Delta, but his pedigree reveals the blues tradition as the true signifier of all American music, whether that music is grown from the soil itself and projects itself to the ends of the earth, or reflects its image back across the distances to the homeland, or into a mirror. Inside that tradition is the cornerstone, the "sanctuary" for all modern popular music to claim as its root. Issued on Peter Gabriel's Real World label, Musselwhite has assembled a crack band for this outing: Joined by guitarist Charlie Sexton (formerly of the Bob Dylan band), bassist Jared Michael Nickerson (Gary Lucas, Freedy Johnston, Jeff Buckley) and back from the One Night in America sessions, and Michael Jerome on drums (Jerome also played with the Five Blind Boys of Alabama who, along with Ben Harper, guest on the set). Sanctuary opens with Harper's "Homeless Child," and the composer guests on his Weissenborn guitar, ramping it down and laying out the killer slide blues for Musselwhite to wrap and moan his lyrics around and into the void of the night sky. With a skeletal chorus provided by Harper and Sexton, the tune goes from the porch to the stratosphere with only the six-string razor and the vocalist's funky harmonica to frame its flight. Harper also guests on Musselwhite's amazing swamp autobiography with the Blind Boys. The song walks the knife's edge of the sacred and profane; it's a hymn of both acceptance and repentance. There is a wonderful tension here, between the darkness of the narrative and the exuberance of the backing vocals and the shuffling drum kit. The atmospheric edges in Musselwhite's mix, though, are better-evidenced by the tunes he plays with his own band, whether it be in the nasty, guttural blues of his own "My Road Lies in Darkness," or in the spooky, laid-back humidity of Randy Newman's "Let's Burn Down the Cornfield." With a cover of Chris Youlden's "Train to Nowhere" -- a song made popular by Youlden's band at the time, Savoy Brown -- the listener travels through time and space: Savoy Brown was trying hard to capture the feel and spirit of the Delta in their version, as the music of the region traveled north to Chicago. Musselwhite, with the Blind Boys, embrace the feeling and take it right back down the Mississippi River, thereby creating a double. While there are no weak moments on the set, a couple of the other standouts include the band's instrumental "Shadow People," which evokes the dread, mystery, and sexy darkness inherent in the music's grain; a stunningly edgy version of Townes Van Zandt's "Snake Song," and a sweet, low, rumbling, sexy twitch that comes from Eddie Harris' "Alicia." Sexton contributes his own magnificent "The Neighborhood" to this; in the deep, expressive world at the bottom of Musselwhite's voice it becomes a song that opens into the shadow side of the world we inhabit everyday. The album ends with a harp solo on "Route 19 (Attala County, MS)"; the player breathing it through the subtle body channels of marrow, bone, and heart cavity, into history, making an offering to the listener as a gift. Sanctuary sets a standard for authenticity, vision, and inspired excellence. Amen. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

While Charlie Musselwhite has always been an adventurous musician -- take into consideration his fine Cuban inflected Continental Drifter, the Americana drenched One Night In America, and the rollicking rock and soul on Sanctuary -- the Delta of his upbringing has never been left out of the mix entirely. Musselwhite may have had a reason to dig so deeply into the hard-edged roots of Delta by way of Chicago blues on this set: he lost both his parents in 2005. The CD booklet is filled with pictures of the sites of his life in Mississippi. Delta Hardware was recorded with Musselwhite's road band, and it has the feeling of motion along with its looking into the past. Guitarist Chris "Kid" Andersen, bassist Randy Bermudes, and drummer June Core hop into the heart of the electric trancelike blues that have been a part of Musselwhite's backbone his entire performing career. The question is, why didn't he record with these guys before? Delta Hardware is a raw, squalling album heavy on brittle guitars, trancelike rhythms, and of course, Musselwhite's harmonica filling the gaps where his world-weary voice shouts, hollers, and bellows. Musselwhite and band dig deep here. The set opens with the strolling minor-key rock & roll blues of "Church Is Out," where Musselwhite offers an autobiographical sketch with boasts worthy of Jay Z. This shimmy shaking electric blues is merely a portent of things to come. On the track that follows, "One of These Mornings," all hell breaks loose. A call and response between Musselwhite and Andersen shuffles like a train off the track to Core's triple-time drums. When he sings, it's more like a roar; unfettered, full of power and the grit necessary to wail above a band playing their asses off. His harp solo is just a scorcher, and it all happens in two-minutes-and-thirty-seconds. "Sundown" is a classic one-four-five shuffle, but with dueling slide guitars popping over the top of Musselwhite's voice. The blunt edge of the blade comes home to roost on "Black Water," where Musselwhite, his harp, and Andersen's guitars are a wandering band of prophets from the old testament warning of the perils of the present age; Musselwhite sounds sad but determined; he's unflinching in his terror-vision and it is bleak. The music is sad as well; it's trancelike, Junior Kimbrough-styled -- repetitive, percussive, snaky -- and when it's time for his brief harp solo, the instrument sounds like it's weeping. Little Walter's "Just a Feeling" is just plain slow and mean. It's a swampy moaner and Andersen's guitars are like fine forged steel with a serrated edge. When Musselwhite digs into his spoken word bag over the tough-assed blues as on the opener and "Invisible Ones," there's not a second that doesn't work. His jeremiad is pure working-class poetry. There is proof in the pudding too, where the crowd expresses its appreciation for the hip-shaking "Clarksdale Boogie," recorded at Red's Juke Joint in that very town. Delta Hardware is the kind of record only a veteran could make, full of backbone, spit and vinegar; it is an early candidate for blues record of the year. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide