The Best Of Wilbert Harrison

3 CDS / 70 Tracks includes 30 previously unavailable songs. It's extremely unlikely that any other 1950s R&B artist blended quite as many disparate idiomatic influences into an instantly identifiable whole as Wilbert Harrison. Wilbert's skill on a variety of instruments was a key factor in his uncommon versatility. He played rolling piano on 'Kansas City' and several of his followups for Bobby Robinson's Harlem-based Fury Records, but he was just as likely to utilize a guitar/harmonica combination that sometimes expanded into a one-man-band setup with the addition of hi-hat. Harrison wasn't afraid to incorporate instrumentation on his recordings that registered well outside the R&B mainstream. The end result still sounded like nobody but Wilbert as he made a slew of platters over the course of a recording career that spanned more than two decades.