In 1980, two young German blues fans drove through the South with a reel-to-reel tape recorder hoping to record the country blues at its source.

The journey was financed by L+R Records, and has become one of the last attempts at "field recordings." They were able to record 25 musicians from nine states, which resulted in L+R releasing 14 albums entitled Living Country Blues USA that were previously available only in Germany.

Recently, Evidence Records compiled a three-CD "greatest hits" collection culled from those albums called Living Country Blues.

The CDs are organized regionally. The first CD is subtitled Mississippi Moan, and is comprised of works by the familiar Mississippi Delta musicians (James "Son" Thomas, Othar Turner, Napoleon Strickland on harmonica, Sam Chatmon, and Lonnie Pitchford) and the unfamiliar (Tommy Johnson interpreters Arzo Youngblood and Boogie Bill Webb, the intense Boyd Rivers, and the unique Cleveland "Broomman" Jones). Some of the most moving work is by a lifelong laborer named Walter Brown, whose "Mississippi Moan" is a disturbing account of what it was like to be black in Mississippi.

The second CD is subtitled Lonesome Road Blues, and encompasses the East Coast. Among the artists highlighted are Guitar Frank, Archie Edwards (his first recordings), James "Guitar Slim" Stephens (on guitar and piano), Flora Molton, and Cephas & Wiggins (their first recordings). This CD has plenty of that laidback feel familiar to fans of Piedmont blues or the work of Mississippi John Hurt (who played regularly in Edwards’ Washington, D.C. barber shop.

The final CD is subtitled You Got To Move, and covers a broad range of Tennessee and Arkansas, as well as areas covered in the first two CDs. CeDell Davis has two tracks featuring his unique slide guitar (stricken with polio, he plays slide over the top of the neck with a butter knife). Representing Tennessee are Charlie Sangster, Hammie Nixon, Lottie Murrell, and Memphis Piano Red. This is a more diverse CD than the other two, and has some of the strongest performances (notably two tracks by Boyd Rivers, two by Othar Turner, Sam Shields’ instrumental, and Joe Savage’s "Joe’s Prison Camp Hollar").

The collection includes a 48-page booklet with extensive notes by Brett Bonner. The notes bring the histories of these musicians up to date. What’s disturbing is how many of these talented artists disappeared after making these recordings and never resurfaced. Most of the ones accounted for have passed away or never recorded again and it makes you wonder how many other talented blues musicians might have gone unrecorded over the years. This is an excellent collection that any blues fan should want to have. Hopefully, Evidence will release the entire L+R series in the future.