Since 1980, Rooster Blues Recordshas released a slow but heartening trickle of solid, tough, uncompromising blues albums. Founded by a quartet of blues critics that included Living Blues founding editors Jim O'Neal and Amy van Singel, Rooster Blues was sold to Bottled MaJic Music in 1999, and this generous 19-track sampler serves as both a retrospective of the vaults as well as an introduction to the label's relative newcomers, such as D.C. Bellamy, Super Chikan, and "Philadelphia" Jerry Ricks. No other current blues label bridges the Chicago and Delta traditions better than Rooster, which has been swimming in indie credibility from the outset; rather than forge a "house" sound based on a few well-known blues artists, the label's operators hunted down the more obscure, underrecorded musicians who they felt deserved another shot in the studio. The results, as this compilation shows, were eclectic and often spectacular, ranging from the Delta blues finesse of Lonnie Pitchford to the juke joint strut of Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes to the West Side guitar antics of Eddy Clearwater. While the album's title suggests that all the songs were cut over a 20-year interval, two of the tracks -- Good Rockin' Charles' "Eyesight to the Blind" and Eddie C. Campbell's "King of the Jungle" -- are actually pre-1980 recordings that were originally issued on Mr. Blues, a label that Rooster Blues acquired in 1981. For a single CD, you can't beat the amount of talent packed into this one. Rock stars didn't worship any of these players, but they are every bit as important to the blues as a Buddy Guy or Howlin' Wolf. ~ Ken Chang, All Music Guide