Muddy Woters

At the time of his very first recordings in 1941, Muddy Waters was not yet called Muddy Waters, and he played acoustic guitar. It wasn't his guitar since he didn't own one, but one that was lent to him by Alan Lomax, the man who discovered him deep in Mississippi when he was a farmer and an amateur musician.

Accompanied by Johnny Winter and his band, Muddy Waters turns in an enthusiastic performance on Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live. The set list contains most of his biggest hits, and the sound quality and performances are mostly energetic. Still, there's something faintly repetitive about this record. For one thing, there's only one song here, "Deep Down in Florida," that comes from any of Waters' recent albums. All of the others are old standards, which makes this album rather superfluous, since there are equally forceful performances of these cuts elsewhere. It doesn't help any that "Deep Down in Florida" isn't an especially noteworthy song, sounding more like a rewrite of Waters' older, better cuts. Without much in the way of new material, or anything especially notable about the performances, it sometimes comes off as little more than a set of Muddy Waters' greatest hits, with applause as the sole new ingredient…

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. The album mostly featured higher-wattage remakes of a lot of familiar repertoire, including "Honey Bee" and "Rollin' and Tumblin'," and also reintroduced Muddy's own electric guitar, which had mostly been unheard on his recordings of the 1960s…

Arguably the heaviest bluesman ever, Muddy Waters literally electrified the Chicago blues world with the 1948 release of his first single on Chess Records ("I Can't Be Satisfied"). By taking the Robert Johnson and Son House-inspired acoustic Delta blues that he had played in Mississippi and firing it up with raw amplification, he created the blueprint for generations of Chicago blues players. Bob Margolin played guitar in Muddy Waters' band for seven years in the '70s, absorbing his music first-hand. In this DVD, he shares the secrets of Muddy's solo guitar and ensemble work and covers slow blues, boogie blues, slide guitar and guitar bass lines in standard and open tunings. Bob even plays an original song that he wrote as a tribute to his former mentor. Includes the songs: Blow Wind Blow · I Can't Be Satisfied · Rollin' and Tumblin' · Big Leg Woman · Kind Hearted Woman · and more. As a special bonus, this DVD includes rare performance footage of Muddy.

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".

Joe Bonamassa - Muddy Wolf at Red Rocks (2015) [2CD] {J+R Adventures}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 845 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 304 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 37 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2015 J+R Adventures | JRA53557
Rock / Blues Rock / Blues

Joe Bonamassa’s new CD features his incredible concert from August 31, 2014 which took place at the famous and drop-dead gorgeous Red Rocks Amphitheatre. The show is a spectacular celebration of the music of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, featuring many of the two blues legends’ greatest songs and a few Bonamassa classics.

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
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 8 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 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.