At first glance, it is hard to understand why Martin Scorsese would want to bring us another compilation of the Allman Brothers Band. There is nothing new here and certainly nothing that cannot be found elsewhere. Moreover, everyone knows that the Allman Brothers play a southern rock style grounded in the blues. Scorsese is producing the PBS blues special which will air September 28, 2003 and therein seems to lie the method behind the Scorsese madness. With that in mind, it becomes clear that Scorsese hand picked these songs to highlight the way rock bands have popularized old blues songs written and performed to limited and largely black audiences in juke joints years before the band played them. The selection includes Muddy Water's "No More Tears" and "Can't Lose What You Never Had", Elmore James "Done Somebody Wrong", T-Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday", Willie Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man and Sonny Boy Williamson's "One Way Out" among others. In that light, it is fair sampling of the Bands rendition of other musicians work although it does ignore the bands original contributions to this same genre. Overall a decent compilation but the sound quality could have been better.

Some CD's of the Scorsese set are pretty lackhuster, but this is great. No country rock or psychedelia, just blues. And the great news is that you not only get the best blues from their first three records from studio (Trouble no more is one of the best blues covers I've ever heard), some rare tracks, but also songs from the great Fillmore

east live album, which show how powerful the band was and what a gorgeous slide guitarist Duane Allman was.

Get It.

Sure, the music is amazing. I suppose you can call this a Allman Brothers sampler.

If you've never bought an Allman Brothers cd though, you're SO MUCH better off buying their albums. Start with these, The Allman Brothers Band, Idlewild South, At Fillmore East, Eat a Peach and Brothers and Sisters.