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Alligator Records 30th Anniversary Collection (Alligator)
Blind Pig Records 25th Anniversary Collection (Blind Pig)
Chicago’s Alligator and San Francisco’s Blind Pig lean heavily on fast-fingered guitar heroes who’ve spent the last three decades delighting roadhouse tourists everywhere. In this, Alligator wins: The late Hound Dog Taylor and Luther Allison, plus jam-happy new talents like Dave Hole and Michael Burks present an unparalleled roster of technical guitar mastery. Blind Pig scavenges the second tier — Tommy Castro, Popa Chubby, Bob Margolin — but these talents are comparatively low on sonic power and name recognition.
Though Alligator’s two-disc set detours through the Holmes Brothers’ masterful gospel-and-rock hymn “Homeless Child” and Saffire the Uppity Blues Women’s funny boogie-woogie lecture “You Can Have My Husband,” diversity isn’t the label’s strong point. Here, Blind Pig’s two-disc set issuperior, opening with a relaxed B.B. King-Arthur Adams collaboration; curving into a wonderful duet between Muddy Waters’ son Big Bill Morganfield and veteran Taj Mahal; and peaking with Chris Thomas King’s anti-gang rap “Cain.” Alligator’s anniversary, with five previously unreleased songs on an all-live second disc, is the more essential party. But non-worshipers at the Altar of the Blues Guitar may prefer Blind Pig’s variety.