When electric guitars became the staple sound of blues, the Mississippi Delta area was one of the very first to react and adapt quickly. Harnessing the rawness and emotional passion of Mississippi blues to this technological development -- largely an outgrowth of the necessity of being heard over the din in noisy taverns and juke joints -- gave Electric Delta Blues a primordial thump all its own. Often distorted and played at high volumes, its guitar work shares many of the patterns that occur in the electric Chicago style -- its spiritual cousin -- while imparting the cruder, more down-home flavor of the region.