Reviewed on 12/14/99 by Jim Burger (4588) Rating: If you're into the blues, at some point you will become interested in blues history. At that point, you will wish that you had this album. So you might as well just get it now. Johnson does some great solo guitar work and it definitely stands up to the test of time. There's just too much good stuff on this album. "Crossroads"? Got that! "Love in Vain"? Yep! "Walking Blues"? You bet! That's why they call it the COMPLETE recordings. The only two drawbacks that I see are (1) his voice can be a little whiney sometimes, and (2) duplicated recordings of the same song played back to back are sometimes interesting for the contrast between versions, but sometimes tiresome. Robert Johnson's major flaw as a bluesman -- he had no nickname!

Reviewed on 12/14/99 by Mark Worrell (2854) Rating: I'm with Jim on this one. I even devoted an hour of class time to play some cuts off this collection for my students. The only acoustic/rural blues records that I could be more enthusiastic about are the couple of Son House records that were put out in the 70s but are now, sadly, out of print.

Reviewed on 12/15/99 by Maciek Sakrejda (8053) Rating:     The man sure can play (I think Eric Clapton mentions something in the liner notes about him having three brains--one for the bass, one for the trebble, and one for the vocals), but his whiny voice gets on my nerves sometimes. Does that warrant dropping the review score a whole point? Keeping in mind that I'm reviewing the recording, not the guitarist, I think so. Especially coupled with what Jim pointed out about the sequencing.

Reviewed on 8/10/00 by Mark Gramola (594) Rating: Robert Johnson is one of my all-time favorites. So naturally a complete collection is great. If you dig acoustic blues or blues in general. GET THIS ALBUM!

Reviewed on 8/23/00 by Cary Frick (3592) Rating: I was blown away by the way Robert Johnson plays guitar! It is simply amazing to me. I was also quite suprised how many of his songs have been covered by the blues greats!

Reviewed on 2/28/01 by Alvin Mullen (1452) Rating: Not something I can listen all at once, but a must have if you want to hear where much of the blues sounds that influenced rock came from.

Reviewed on 2/28/01 by Howard Owens (3143) Rating: If you want to research the roots of rock and roll, and find out where it got it's power, it's primordial stew of raw energy, Robert Johnson is one of the two or three key sources. Owning some Robert Johnson is a must for any serious rock, blues or country player.

Reviewed on 7/11/01 by Ga Thomas (1904) Rating: The word essential comes to mind here. Along with many others. There is nothing you can say about this recording that hasn't been said before. My parting words are only "GET IT"

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