What is it about the blues? What is it about music steeped in depression, loss, and heartache that can be so uplifting? Crossroad Blues, a collection of early electric blues music, has the answer.

It's the energy.

The driving rhythm of J.B. Lenoir's "Mama Talk to Your Daughter" sets a headlong pace, while the honking sax and boogie-woogie piano of Nature Boy Brown's "Blue Blue Boogie" set the toes to tapping. "Drop Anchor", by Harmonica Slim, is another hot-stepper, featuring (predictably) some saucy mouth-organ. There are these, and plenty more, reasons to jump up and dance to this record, so clear the floor before you hit play.

It's the voices.

The shallow timbre of Curtis Jones as he sings the "Cool PlayingBlues" echoes the reverb of the guitar as the rhythm shuffles quietly behind. Then there's the clear, crisp cries of "Murder in the First Degree" by St. Louis Jimmy—one of many obscure talents featured on this collection—smoothly spread over a tense break-beat rhythm. Johnny Lewis delivers more traditional blues shouting on "She's Taking All My Money", soaring above the over-driven guitar that has become the signature sound of the blues.

But most of all, it's the humanity.

The feeling that somewhere, somebody else has felt that same pain, that you're not alone, that somewhere the guitar of Albert King wails the "Bad Luck Blues" over a trilling roadhouse piano. Snooky Pryor's "Crosstown Blues" is the archetypal blues song, laden with hyper-trebled guitar, chirping harmonica, and a voice that is plugged directly into the singer's soul. On the mellow side is Jimmy Wilson's "Alley Blues", an empathic swirl of pain—cathartic and uplifting, the consummate blues paradox.

There's so much great blues on this record it's almost criminal, almost obscene. From the instrumental boogie-beat of Little Willie Foster's "Four Day Jump" to the jig-walk guitar of Earl Hooker's "On the Hook" to the standard 12-bar of Little Sammy Daivs (not that one) singing "Goin' to New Orleans", this collection is a snapshot of the birth of electric blues, a time when the truth and urgency of the music harnessed the new vocabulary of amplified instrumentation. Even the legendary Lightnin' Hopkins is here with "Walkin' the Streets", as clean and clear a recording of this classic as I've ever heard.

No aficionado of roots music can be without these songs, these kernels of truth and beauty. If you love music, if you live music, this is music. Pay your dues, and bring home the blues.