Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live: Legacy Edition
Muddy Waters
Bob Margolin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, Johnny Winter, James Cotton
Engineer: Dave Still,
Producer: Johnny Winter
Legacy Recordings, 2003
2 CD
Catalogue #: 86559
EAN: 0696998655928
UPC: 696998655928
You save: 25%
Personnel: Muddy Waters (vocals, guitar, slide guitar); Johnny Winter, Bob Margolin, Luther "Guitar Jr." Johnson (guitar); Jerry Portnoy, James Cotton (harmonica); Pine Top Perkins (piano); Calvin Jones, Charles Calmese (bass); Willie "Big Eyes" Smith (drums).
Includes liner notes by Robert Gordon and Bob Margolin.
Muddy Waters was sharp enough to realize he was onto a good thing after Johnny Winter helped him get back to his roots on 1977's HARD AGAIN. He continued working with Winter in the same no-nonsense vein through the rest of the decade. The fruit of their collaboration can be heard in a live setting on this 1979 release, which takes HARD AGAIN's brand of revitalized Muddy to the stage. Backed by his regular band plus Winter, Muddy invests these songs with so much emotion you'd swear it was the first time he'd sung "Mannish Boy" instead of the ten-thousandth. Willie "Big Eyes" Smith's simple, insistent drums, and the guitars of Winter, Bob Margolin and Luther Johnson move together with the single-minded precision of a power drill, with Muddy playing the part of the husky-voiced drill bit. Amazingly, Muddy's power is undiminished from his '50s salad days. When he closes with a newer number about "going down to Florida," there's no need to worry about early retirement. He sounds ready to keep going as long as there's life in him. And that's exactly what he did.
Tracklist
Muddy Waters
Originally a Delta bluesman in the vein of Son House, Muddy Waters moved north in the 1940s and became the leader of the first--and greatest--electric Chicago blues band. Waters' abrasive guitar, impassioned singing, and commanding stage presence inspired generations of disciples, and hits like "Hoochie Coochie Man" and "I've Got My Mojo Workin'" are now indisputable classics.
Johnny Winter
Texan blues guitarist Johnny Winter, surely the first albino blues guitar hero, was already a convincing artist in the '60s when still in his teens. At the dawn of the '70s, he embraced the sound of the time, adopting a louder, more frenetic blues-rock style. Backed by the McCoys, including guitarist Rick Derringer, he released a series of classic blues-rock albums, while his keyboard-playing brother Edgar, with whom Johnny played on and off over the years, achieved stardom in his own right. At the end of the '70s, Winter produced Muddy Waters, helping him make a triumphant comeback. In the ensuing decades, Winter maintained a prolific schedule of touring and recording.
