John Waters

Crossing Muddy Waters was singer-songwriter John Hiatt's fifteenth album, released in 2000. A raw album recorded with no drummer, it was a purely acoustic album that brought elements of bluegrass music into his Americana sound. (The title of the album is a pun, referencing blues legend Muddy Waters.) It was nominated for a Grammy award in 2001 for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

Recorded on October 11, 1997 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington D.C., an impressive All-Star cast of Blues musicians, including Muddy's own son Bill Morganfield, turned out to pay homage to the Legendary Muddy Waters, the King of Blues. Features special guests, John Hiatt, Peter Wolf, Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor, Charlie Musslewhite, Robert Junior Lockwood, Big Bill Morganfield, Nick Gravenites, Mem Shannon and Phoebe Snow.

.This official and authorized centennial tribute to Muddy Waters is a once-in-a-lifetime CD event that celebrates, commemorates and contributes the musical legacy of this American icon. With 15 newly-recorded songs, Muddy Waters 100 features Muddy Waters Band alumni and many of today s most preeminent American blues and roots artists, including Gary Clark Jr., Shemekia Copeland, James Cotton, Bob Margolin, Keb Mo, John Primer, Derek Trucks, Johnny Winter, and others… The CD is contained in a collectible CD-sized hard-cover book with 48 pages illustrated with black and white photography by some of the greatest photographers of Muddy's time: Don Bronstein, Ray Flerlage, Paul Natkin, Marc Pokempner, Art Shay and D. Shigley, among others. Also included is an original essay by Robert Gordon, Grammy-winning author of the definitive Muddy Waters biography "Can't Be Satisfied - The Life and Times of Muddy Waters".

Harmonica player Al Miller brings in three guitar aces to help him create this unique blues album: John Primer, Dave Specter and Billy Flynn. But Al doesn't just play harp. Whether he is wailing away on harmonica, singing, writing songs, or providing guitar accompaniment, Al imbues every aspect of his involvement in the music with feeling, which, as every blues fan knows, is what the blues is all about. Al sings most of the songs, however John Primer sings lead on three. "…In Between Time" has seventeen songs in all, including the previously unissued "Blizzard". Miller’s instrumental excursions display immaculate taste; never overplaying, he always adheres to the all-for-one, one-for-all ensemble approach characterizing postwar Chicago blues.

There are a handful of landmark albums in any genre. In the blues, one of them is Muddy Waters' "Folk Singer". Originally released in 1964, "Folk Singer" was the only acoustic album Waters ever recorded, thus becoming the first and perhaps best blues concept album ever. Now, "Folk Singer", which includes fellow blues greats Buddy Guy and Willie Dixon backing up Waters, is being re-released in an expanded version that features two bonus tracks recorded during the two 1964 sessions that followed those for the album - "The Same Thing" and "You Can't Lose What You Never Had". Muddy Waters was the king of electric Chicago blues, but on Folk Singer he proved to be, simply, one of the greats of 20th century music.