New Orleans is well known as the birthplace of jazz, but the same combination of French, Spanish, Native American, Caribbean, Latin, and African-American musical and cultural input that begat jazz also worked its magic on blues in the region, and during the 1940s and into the 1950s a distinctly New Orleans approach to blues and R&B emerged. Usually piano-driven and backed by inventive rhythms that showed the marked influence of thousands of impromptu second-line marching units, New Orleans blues and R&B developed a rolling, joyous feel that captured the rollicking feel of the city in the same way that jazz captured its elegance. This two-CD set features 36 of these mid-period New Orleans blues-based tracks, and it's fun stuff, with cuts like Champion Jack Dupree's loping "Gamblin' Man Blues," Fats Domino's zippy (for Fats, anyway) "Don't You Lie to Me," George Stevenson's "Morning Train" (with its rolling, second-line drum backing), Smiley Lewis' ragged/elegant "Lonesome Highway," and Rose Mitchell's intense "Baby Please Don't Go" all showing the distinctive musical vitality of the Crescent City. ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide