Blues from the 50s/60s/70s

I really appreciate this post. I'm in the same boat, starting to collect blues. It has been much harder going, finding good sounding blues recordings as opposed to finding good sounding jazz, which seems to be far easier. I was lucky enough to find a best of Lightnin' Hopkins with very nice sound. Also, Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall. Also, an Etta James Tell Mama original pressing sounds good, although more like soul than blues, perhaps. I've bought about 15 other blues LPs from my local stores and they are just terrible as far as sound quality goes, and not cheap. Crem1...I don't think the community on Audiogon is large enough to pump up market prices for such LPs, if that is what you are worried about. However, I would add that Crem1 has contributed exceptionally helpful posts in general, especially regarding steam cleaning - Mark

For my part, it would be helpful if those posting would suggest some LPs that are great for both LP sound quality and music. It seems to me that if the sound quality is lackluster on so many of these blues LPs, and they are also so rare/expensive, it would make more sense, when building a blues collection, to focus more towards CDs or PC-based digital, and go with vinyl just in the rare instances when a good LP of the material is available, such as Lighnin Hopkins Goin Away, for example.