Bix Beiderbecke's "Singing the Blues" (Rick's pick too) changed my life -- it was the first jazz song I ever really listened to carefully (thanks to Humph Littleton's classic description in his book on the Giants of Jazz). To have something shaped so beautifully and somewhat spontaneously: could such a thing be? I followed that up with all kinds of 20's jazz (Louis, oh, Louis); and then one day for no good reason, I thought well, why not try some real blues, and I went out and bought a compilation disk, and on it I heard Son House's "Death Letter Blues" (Thank you, Columbia Records!) and that was that for awhile (a few zillion Muddy Waters and Little Walter records later), and then one day, many years later, I was surfing the Net looking for where Son House was buried intending to visit and pay homage (not done yet, one day I will), and I found a brief reference to Son House in something called the Mudcat Cafe, and then I clicked around the site, and then here I was! Life changing, or what?
Yours, Peter T.