This set follows Volume 1 of post-war blues, with a mix of both well known and lesser known performers. These are recordings (77, 75, 76, 77, 78, minutes each disc) from the prime era of Chicago blues from the 1940's into the early 1960's, with most tracks from the 1950's. The majority of names you'll recognize especially if you're a deep blues fan, but the tracks from these performers are unissued or alternates, (most) unreleased until now. And even if there's little difference between the issued songs, it's still great to hear so many of the best blues performers back when the blues was really alive. Similar to Vol. 1, all the tracks have been aurally checked against both editions of "Blues Records 1943-1970" by Mike Leadbetter and Neil Slaven for accuracy of information.Well known performers include Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Billy Boy Arnold, Honey Boy Edwards, Homesick James, Howling Wolf, Elmore James, Albert King, Little Walter, Memphis Minnie, Otis Spann, and a few others. But it's almost always the lesser known names included here that make this set even better, with Blue Smitty, James Clark, Forest City Joe, Lazy Bill, Herman Ray, Slim Willis, and others, all playing some good period blues. Track1 Disc 1 is a surprise--James Clark-vocal/piano, with Ransom Knowling-bass, and (surprise) the well known Chicago blues sax player J.T. Brown playing a clarinet. If you're expecting some electrified Chicago blues right off the bat, this track will make you sit up and listen. But it shows that big city blues wasn't just guitar/harp/piano/ bass/drums over a vocal.The sound, over the 6 + hours of music, is very good, especially for tracks recorded so long ago and from different studios and labels. But there are tracks that suffer in sound quality, but it's either put up with some scratchiness or not hear the track at all if it wasn't included. If you've heard the first volume of this music the sound is on par with that. These recordings have come from the collections of Chris Bentley, Dave Williams, Mike Rowe, (the late) George Paulus, and Pete Moody. The 91 page booklet is stuffed with information in a long essay by blues historian Mike Rowe. The accompanying period photos of the performers and the atmospheric Chicago shots, along with the repros of record labels (in color) from Columbia, Chess, Parrot, RCA, Tempo Tone, Aladdin, Checker, Vee-Jay, and a few others are a nice addition to this set. There's short essays on each performer (with a handy index for fast location of every performer) which is right and proper in a collection like this. Plus there's complete session details of each track which is invaluable for blues fans (like me) that want to know just who that is playing piano/guitar/drums/etc. But the information isn't listed in order of each disc which means you have to search out the performer. The discs snap into trays inside the five-fold cardboard package which has a complete track list on the inside panels and on the back cover. Everything slips into a fairly flimsy (but better than some I've come across) slipcase.This is well worth adding to your collection of post-war blues, even with alternate tracks from the better known people here. Track after track/performer after performer, there's a lot of good/great music here. Maybe it goes without saying that this is the real deal in prime era Chicago blues.If you haven't heard Vol.1 ("Fine Boogie") in this series you need to. Also worth checking out are box sets like "Down Home Blues Classics, Chicago 1946-1954", "Down Home Blues-Detroit Special", and "Down Home Blues Classics 1943-1953".