Willie Dixon wore a lot of hats. He sang gospel as a young man, was a boxer for a time, and was even imprisoned as a draft dodger. He was also a versatile musician -- a bass player, songwriter, producer, and arranger -- and without him, modern blues might well not exist. This wonderfully conceived four-disc, 100-track box set covers all the dimensions of
Dixon's musical career, with a disc each devoted to
Dixon as a performer, session musician, and songwriter, with a final disc that shows him as a general all-around fix-it man for Chess and Cobra Records. Writing "Spoonful" alone would have assured
Dixon a place in the blues story, but as this set shows, he did so much more than that.