26 R&B Classics That Rocked The Jukebox 1945

Here's why Bear Family's Blowing The Fuse will be the standard for R&B reissues now and forever: it starts at the dawn of the Post-War R&B era in 1945, and continues through until 1960. Other labels lift photos from old books and magazines, and commission quickie liner notes that tell you little or nothing, and often get it wrong. Bear Family's Blowing The Fuse has detailed song-by-song notes, stories behind the songs, and incredible never-before-seen photos in huge booklets...booklets so big they won't even fit inside the standard plastic case. They go in specially designed DigiPacs.

Most out-of-copyright labels do their compilations from chart books compiled by Joel Whitburn. Compiling from Whitburn is taking the easy way out. We hired Dave 'Daddy Cool' Booth, a guy with one of North America's biggest R&B collections and the dee-jay experience to know how to program music. He went through his incredible collection and then he went through 'Billboard' year-by-year, and picked out more than just the hits. We selected the absolute best music, some of it never reissued on CD until now, as well as the biggest hits, and we have no more than two songs by any artist on any CD. These are true, properly thought-out compilations in the spirit of Guy Stevens, Paul Oliver, Mike Leadbitter, and the others who compiled groundbreaking blues/R&B LPs back in the 1960s and 1970s.

Finally, we used the absolute best sources from the original labels, then carefully remastered for the absolute best-ever sound. If you're sick of R&B reissues that look and sound like a proper mess, the best is now here.