Johnson's greatness lies in his songwriting ("Cross Road Blues," "Come On In My Kitchen," "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Love In Vain"); his eerie, straining voice; and his complex walking bass and slide guitar
style that served as counterpoint to his harrowing fables of hellhounds, meetings
with the devil, and untrue women. Johnson didn't just play his guitar, he had a relationship with it that took the form of a dialogue that reflected both the anguish and the exhilaration inherent in pursuing a satisfaction that was never to be his.

Bob Dylan - Blonde On Blonde
Bob Dylan is the most important American songwriter of the last 40 years and, arguably, the greatest white blues singer of all time. Blonde On Blonde is his best album, recorded in Nashville with a great electric band that included Jerry Kennedy, Joe South, Al Kooper and Robbie Robertson (as well as the rhythm section that would become Area Code 615) in 1966. It's a deeply bluesy album and focuses on relationships more than the politics and social commentary of his previous work.

Blonde was a double album (now a single CD) with some of Dylan's greatest songs: the rowdy "Rainy Day Women" with it's famous observation "I would not feel so all alone, everybody must get stoned."

"I Want You" is a beautiful, gentle country-rock ballad. "Just Like a Woman" is
equally lovely, with Dylan's amazing insight into the sexual maturity and emotional fragility of most adults. "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again" and "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" are also classics.

The Beatles - Abbey Road
Abbey Road, from 1969, was the last album the Beatles recorded together (Let It Be, recorded earlier, was released in '70) and wrapped up the '60s on a triumphant note. All of the squabbling and contrary agendas that had permanently poisoned the band and that also seemed to represent the death of the idealism of the '60s were somehow put aside as the individual members became a magical unit one last time.

Though not necessarily containing the band's best songs, Abbey Road is their best album as one song flows into the other, with melodic and lyrical themes recurring and interweaving like a true rock symphony especially on side two where "You Never Give Me your Money" flows into "Sun King," "Mean Mr. Mustard," "Polythene Pam," "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window," "Golden Slumbers" and "Carry That Weight" - each song different yet cut from the same cloth.