Blues Years

There are a bunch of early Eric Clapton recordings that get circulated endlessly through budget-line collections, primarily consisting of live Yardbirds' cuts and a live 1965 jam session credited to the Immediate All-Stars and featuring Jimmy Page, Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, and Ian Stewart. These show up again on Castle's 1999 compilation Blues Years, along with three tracks he cut with John Mayall (none from the Bluesbreakers album) and a handful of cuts that Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page did with the Immediate All-Stars (separately, not together) and the difference here is that this is not a budget-line release; everything is presented coherently and with annotation and pretty good sound. So, for hardcore Clapton fans who have to hear everything he did, this is the choice among the plethora of comps to get this early, mildly interesting marginalia. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine