Muddy Waters – The Best Of Muddy Waters

Twelve singles become an album

The Best of Muddy Waters does not document a single album session. Its twelve selections were recorded in Chicago between 1948 and 1954, then brought together for Muddy Waters’ first LP. Several years of recording activity sit beside each other on two sides: an early collection of a repertoire whose influence would extend well beyond the city.

Waters had moved to Chicago in 1943. These recordings provide a way to explore the connection between his Mississippi background and the electric blues associated with his new home. Chess is part of that history, as is the preceding Aristocrat period. The famous building on South Michigan Avenue should not be imagined as the location of these sessions, however: Chess moved there in 1957, after all the performances collected here had been recorded.

One guitar, then a band

“Rollin’ Stone” offers an especially direct starting point. Waters sings and plays electric guitar alone. Voice and instrument have to carry the entire performance, with no band filling the spaces between them. Its title later provided a reference for the name of the Rolling Stones. Here, the original recording remains the immediate object of attention rather than simply an item in another band’s origin story.

The programme also includes Willie Dixon’s “Hoochie Coochie Man,” recorded in 1954 with participants including Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, Otis Spann and Dixon. Try the two performances in succession and follow how the relationship between singing and accompaniment changes. A blues performance can be sustained by one instrument or draw its tension from coordinated ensemble entries. The collection gives you examples of both, without turning separate sessions into a retrospectively unified studio album.

Little Walter and the voices behind the voice

Across the different dates, the credits bring together musicians who became important Chicago blues figures in their own right. Little Walter contributes harmonica and also guitar, Jimmy Rogers guitar and Otis Spann piano. Ernest “Big” Crawford joins Willie Dixon among the bass players represented in the collection. The personnel changes from session to session; this is not a band in which everybody plays on every track.

“I Just Want to Make Love to You” opens this reissue and “I Can’t Be Satisfied” closes it. Between them are “Long Distance Call,” “Honey Bee,” “Still a Fool” and other selections. Follow the responses to the vocal lines: who adds a short answering phrase, who maintains the pulse and where is a pause left open? That approach turns twelve familiar titles into twelve distinct musical situations. The fact that this is a collection, rather than a purpose-built album session, is an essential part of its identity.

The Chess mono reissue

ACHE 89589 is a single 180-gram mono LP at 33⅓ RPM in the Chess Acoustic Sounds Series. Matthew Lutthans mastered it at The Mastering Lab. Acoustic Sounds describes the mastering as all-analogue, while the label identifies the original analogue tapes as the source. Pressing is by Quality Record Pressings, with a tip-on gatefold jacket. The twelve selections are presented in this reissue’s running order, which differs from historical LP track listings.

Michael 45 holds the record in Germany and ships it from Hilden, eliminating the need for a personal import from the United States and the associated customs wait.

More by Muddy Waters: Folk Singer · The Real Folk Blues

Series: Chess Records – all 10 records: singles that became albums

Musicians

Documented selection of participating musicians. Personnel may vary by track; this list does not claim to be complete.