This Rough Guide highlights how the Delta blues became the most influential of all the blues forms, a must-have album for blues and guitar enthusiasts it features a classic collection of tracks by artists who laid the foundations for the electric blues and rock explosion to come. Featuring many blues legends including Charley Patton, Son House, Skip James and Tommy Johnson, tracks by blues divas Memphis Minnie and Mattie Delaney as well as more obscure artists across carefully chosen tracks that have been lovingly remastered using pioneering restoration techniques. There can be few finer examples of how grand culture can emerge from the most horrendous conditions and then flourish than the story of the Delta blues. Born of the oppressed labouring the rich soils of the Mississippi Delta region, no other musical form has had such an enduring influence on western rock culture.