I Was Walking Through the Woods

This incendiary giant of Chicago blues guitar cut his first singles for the Cobra label in the late '50s, but he'd worked his delivery to whip-crack intensity by the time of these early '60s sides for Chess. Guy's signature tracks-"I Found a True Love," "My Time After a While," and the title cut find him shaking the influence of B.B. King in favor of a raw, ringing, dirty Stratocaster tone and edgy vocals. It's a dramatic, hard-edged approach developed by Guy, Otis Rush, Junior Wells, and Magic Sam in the tough ghetto clubs of the Windy City's west and south sides. It's also the sound of the torch being passed from the first generation of electric bluesmen, like Guy's mentor Muddy Waters, to the then-young upstarts who would take the music to the brink of the exploratory blues-fueled rock 'n' roll that Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix would soon create.