This 45-song, two-disc collection is subtitled "two decades of killer fretwork", and never was a set so aptly described. Chess Records was the home to seemingly every hot guitar player in the Chicago area, and many of them make their appearance here. Besides the usual label guitar hotshots (Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Buddy Guy, Lowell Fulson, Earl Hooker, Otis Rush, Robert Nighthawk, Little Milton), space is given to sideman work from legends like Hubert Sumlin and Robert Jr. Lockwood and great one-offs by lesser-known artists like Jody Williams, Danny Overbea, Eddie Burns, Joe Hill Louis, Morris Pejoe, Lafayette Thomas and others. It seems as if everyone recorded for Chess at one time or another, also explaining the inclusion of tracks by John Lee Hooker, Albert King, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Lonnie Brooks, Hound Dog Taylor and Elmore James. If electric blues guitar's your thing, then look no further than this fine two-disc compilation.

Los Angeles-based blues-rocker Beth Hart began playing piano at age four, later attending L.A.'s High School for the Performing Arts as a vocal and cello major. By 1993, she was a regular fixture of the local club circuit, by 1993 collaborating with bassist Tal Herzberg and guitarist Jimmy Khoury; with the addition of drummer Sergio Gonzalez early the following year, the Beth Hart Band was complete, and after signing to Atlantic's Lava imprint, the group issued its debut album, Immortal, in 1996. Screamin' for My Supper followed three years later. In 2003, Hart released Leave the Light On, followed by both audio and DVD versions of Live at Paradiso in 2005. In 2007, she released 37 Days, which was only released in Europe and Japan. It was followed by Beth Hart & the Ocean of Souls in 2009 on Razz Records. In 2010, Hart released My California in Europe, followed by release in the United States in early 2011. Hart emerged later in the year in collaboration with blues guitar superstar Joe Bonamassa on a searing collection of soul covers entitled Don't Explain.