Muddy Waters Woodstock Album

Of all the post-Fathers & Sons attempts at updating Muddy's sound in collaboration with younger white musicians, this album worked best because they let Muddy be himself, producing music that compared favorably to his concerts of the period, which were wonderful. His final album for Chess (recorded at Levon Helm's Woodstock studio, not in Chicago), with Helm and fellow Band-member Garth Hudson teaming up with Muddy's touring band, it was a rocking (in the bluesy sense) soulful swansong to the label where he got his start. Muddy covers some songs he knew back when (including Louis Jordan's "Caldonia" and "Let The Good Times Roll"), plays some slide, and generally has a great time on this Grammy-winning album. This record got lost in the shuffle between the collapse of Chess Records and the revival of Muddy's career under the auspices of Johnny Winter, and was forgotten until 1995. The CD contains one previously unreleased number, "Fox Squirrel".

Muddy Waters - After The Rain (1969) {Universal B0015982-02 rel 2011}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 254 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 91 Mb
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© 1969, 2011 Cadet Concept / Geffen / Get On Down / Universal | B0015982-02
Blues / Chicago Blues / Electric Blues

After the Rain dates from the most controversial period in Muddy Waters' history – along with its predecessors, Electric Mud (probably the most critically despised album in Muddy's catalog) and Brass and the Blues (an effort to turn him into B.B. King), it came out of an era in which Chess Records was desperately thrashing around trying any musical gambit to boost the sales of its top blues stars. But unlike Electric Mud, in which the repertoire selected by producer Marshall Chess was mostly unsuited, and the musical settings provided by Phil Upchurch, Pete Cosey et al. were too loud and too frenetic for Muddy's style of singing, After the Rain simply let him be Muddy Waters.

On March 9, Experience Hendrix and Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, proudly release Both Sides of the Sky, a dynamic new Jimi Hendrix album featuring 13 studio recordings made between 1968 and 1970—10 of which have never before been released. The album will be released on multiple formats including CD, digital, and as a numbered 180 gram audiophile vinyl 2LP.

In 1975 Paul Butterfield backed Muddy Waters once again on The Woodstock Album, the last LP release ever on Chess. Butterfield subsequently pursued a solo career, with diminishing returns. His Henry Glover-produced solo debut, Put It in Your Ear, appeared in 1976…

The first studio album of Band originals since 1971's Cahoot – in many respects, Northern Lights-Southern Cross was viewed as a comeback. It also can be seen as a swan song, in that its recording marked the last time the five members would work together in the studio as a permanent group, with a commitment to making a record they would tour behind and build on as a working band. The album was also, ironically enough, the Band's finest since their self-titled sophomore effort, even outdoing Stage Fright.

Various Artists - The Henry Glover Story, Vol. 2: 1951-1961 (2012) {2CD Set Rhythm & Blues Records RANDB021}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 668 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 352 Mb
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© 1951-61, 2012 King Records / Rhythm & Blues Records | RANDB021
Rhythm & Blues / Early R&B / Early Pop / Country / Doo Wop / Produced / Trumpet

This set continues tracing the musical career of the multi talented Henry Glover. Up through 1959 Henry continued his association with King Records writing and producing for King and its Federal and Bethlehem subsidiaries and the first disc and half the second are devoted to these recordings featuring classic performances by Wynonie Harris, Sonny Thompson, Moon Mullican, Lulu Reed, Tiny Bradshaw, The Five Royales, The Checkers, Linda Hopkins, Bill Doggett and others. It also features covers of Glover's King songs including Ray Charles spectacular version of Drown In My Tears, Teresa Brewer's improbable cover of Wynonie Harris's Lovin' Machine, Johnny Burnette's version of The Delmore Brothers' Blues Stay Away From Me and others.

Both Sides of the Sky is another collection of high-quality studio recordings, dating from 1968-1970. It might surprise some that, 45-plus years after his death, there's still good material that hasn't been previously released, but Hendrix was recording nearly all the time at this point, whether they were demos done in his apartment, late-night jamming with friends, working on new material, or finishing/reworking older tracks. The Record Plant recordings have been heavily bootlegged, but the truly surprising thing about this collection is the amount of material even hardcore Hendrix collectors may not have heard yet.