The material gets 4 or 5 stars but I just don't recommend it. Go to the heart of the matter- That's what I recommend. I don't remember how I came by this album but I wouldn't buy it twice no matter how good the material was. If you are a clapton fan- You'll probably end up getting the records that carry this material without having to buy a compilation disk like this. If you are not really a big Clapton fan and just a blues fan than look up his electric all blues album- from the cradle which is superior or his acoustic live set at mtv unplugged or even Eric Clapton: Blues which is a decent compilation. Just cut to the chase and don't bother with this. Like I said a big fan would have this material on all sorts of different albums already and someone just interested in EC blues would probably be better off with one of the ones I named. I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but that's what I would do having listened to this album anyway. Like I said - the songs and playing are all great but for instance- They call it stormy monday[great song pick]... Not the best sound quality you can get. I'd spend another dollar or two on a better group from the same time period if I were you. But I'm not, so all I can say is that I hope I helped.

This is one of many Clapton recordings/compilations, but in my opinion one the bests. These are the type of songs that a EC fan would like to hear, not only the latest commercial efforts but also his roots.

i bought this cd and was very pleased with it ,,it takes you from john mayall to blind faith "well allright...to derek and the dominos ...to eric doing some great riffs on drifting blues and mean old frisco blues ....if your a clapton fan this is a must for your collection ...

As a Fan of Eric from the early days, this album was really unnecessary as I have almost all of the tracks on their original albums. However, it still is a good introduction to why Eric excited us in the 'olden days'. His playing with Mayall and Cream remains his best work. This generalisation is not totally true as shown by the 'Same Old Blues' track from the 'Behind the Sun' album which unfortunately not featured here, but 'CrossRoads' is still as magic as ever. I also love 'Outside Woman Blues' because it also shows how good Ginger Baker was on drums.

This album is a good purchase for fans of his work with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers as several of the tracks are from his time with that band. Yes the sound is kind of rough on Stormy Monday but the performance is really intense and in my opinion this track makes the disc worth owning. Not that the other material is not great by any means. Several of the tracks are true classics, but like the other reviewer said they are readily available on other albums whereas Stormy Monday by the Bluesbreakers is much harder to find. My only complaints with the disc are that "Well Alright" by Blind Faith seems out of place with the other songs and the version of "Drifting Blues" is not the full unedited version found on the compact disc E.C. Was Here.