Can't Be Satisfied (49 page)

The London Sessions,
in the years prior to Muddy’s comeback recordings, consistently proved a good entry into blues for the basic rock and roll fan. Recorded with British rock
musicians, it brings a modern sensibility to Muddy’s blues, updating his updated blues. (Of Chess’s
London Sessions
series, the one that works best is Howlin’
Wolf’s.) Outtakes of Muddy’s and Wolf’s London recordings were issued on an LP titled
London Revisited,
without the horn overdubs that get in the way of the earlier
release; Muddy’s four songs are quite good.

I’ve never much liked
Can’t Get No Grinding,
though it’s often praised. I can’t get past the electric piano, which dominates the mix.
Unk in Funk
is not
a bad record, but neither is it memorable. Muddy’s last record for Chess, the
Woodstock Album,
is a decent parting statement. With Levon Helm and Henry Glover producing, the sound
achieves a modern, rooted groove. There’s enough studio banter on the record that you can pick up the fun they had making it. For those trying to ease into blues, this is not a bad place to
make the tentative first step. (But really, does
easing in
work? When the water feels a bit cold, don’t you adjust faster by diving in headfirst? Go on, pick up a
Best of
.)
If you are a completist, or are writing a book about Muddy, shop for the out-of-print, nine-CD box set from Charly Records in England, which includes everything Muddy did for Aristocrat and Chess
through 1967.

As my text makes clear, I’m a fan of Muddy’s CBS / Sony recordings, especially
Hard Again.
For the popular music fan unfamiliar with traditional blues, this is the perfect
transitional record. It plays like rock and roll, but sounds like blues.
I’m Ready,
the follow-up, lacks the punch
of Hard Again
but is a more intricate, complex recording.
King Bee
and
Muddy “Mississippi” Waters Live
round out the Sony material and probably are best left for completists; you can sample tracks from them on the Sony
compilations
Blues Sky
and
King of the Electric Blues.

Some of the best Muddy is heard on Otis Spann recordings.
Live the Life
(Hightone, www.hightone.com) compiles several different live dates recorded by Pete
Welding in the 1960s, with Otis and Muddy taking turns leading; hard-hitting and deep. Three Spann albums from the 1960s are worth seeking out:
Half Ain’t Been Told
(Decca / Black
Cat) was recorded during the 1964 European Blues and Gospel Train tour. Muddy lets Otis lead, adding gorgeous slide guitar. A couple tracks from that session were included on the 1960s compilation
Raw Blues
(London Records).
The Bottom of the Blues
is a studio album, Muddy and his band backing Otis. Great stuff, it features a couple tracks written by Muddy not heard
anywhere else; “Looks Like Twins” makes this album worth seeking out.

Before Leonard Chess would accept Muddy’s band, they made a few recordings in various phases of formation. The earliest, with Walter singing lead, came during a Sunnyland Slim session that
also included Muddy, Baby Face Leroy, and Floyd Jones. These two tracks are on a Dutch Sunnyland Slim Compilation,
The Devil Is a Busy Man
(Official), and also, though I have not seen it,
a Nighthawk LP. The band got together behind Jimmy Rogers, delivering a more formed sound for his first rendering of “Ludella”; this appears on a 1992 Biograph CD of Regal recordings
—
Memphis Minnie: Early Rhythm and Blues,
1949.
On
The Blues World of Little Walter
(Delmark, www. delmark.com), there’s the entire 1950 renegade
“Rollin’ and Tumblin’ ” session. Jimmy showed up for some of these tracks, which best represent the earliest Muddy band sound. Lastly, though Muddy’s not on it,
there’s good Jimmy Rogers with Sunnyland Slim doing an early “That’s All Right” on the Delmark CD
Sunnyland Slim House Rent Party.

MCA Records has done a good job of mining Muddy’s unreleased tracks, outtakes, and even recordings not originally under the Chess auspices. I love the 1972 acoustic radio broadcast that
makes up much of the second CD on
One More Mile
.

There’s been a slew of live Muddy released. Much of it comes from the latter years and the recordings tend to blend.
Collaboration
is the title given to the only known recording
from Muddy’s first English tour, 1958. The recording was made from the soundboard, through which Muddy’s guitar was not miked; his Telecaster went out to the room through his amp. So
the sound on the disc is nothing like what the audience heard, but I find fascinating the general feel and vibe of Muddy and Spann in a foreign country that long ago. Muddy’s Carnegie Hall
performance with Memphis Slim makes up part of
Chicago Blues Masters Volume One
(Capitol). There’s good music here; it’s worth seeking out. Another of my favorite live releases
is
Muddy Waters and Friends
(Just a Memory, www.justin-time.com), recorded one morning at a Canadian rooming house. After Muddy plays his few songs on the acoustic guitar, the instrument
gets passed around; even Spann plays it. There’s a companion to that disc,
Hoochie Coochie Man
(Just a Memory). The show is hot but so is the recording — distorted. Another
live CD titled
Hoochie Coochie Man
(Laserlight, www.deltamusic.com) is notable both for its raucous slide guitar and its interesting set list (including “Rosalie,” an obscure
track from the Library of Congress recordings). Recorded in 1964, the CD captures Muddy at his mightiest; during “Tiger in Your Tank” (mistitled “Sittin’ and Thinkin’
”), when the guitar is about to overcome the vocals (as it rightly should, growling), the soundman abruptly adjusts it — it pains me every time. Nonetheless, among Muddy’s live
discs, this one’s the one.

Avoid
Muddy Waters in Concert
(Classic Sound); it’s horribly distorted. The CD
Muddy Waters Blues Band Featuring Dizzy Gillespie
is misnamed; Diz
is only on one track. Fortunately, the set is not bad, but still, one hates to be tricked. The
Muddy Waters Story
(Chrome Dreams) is another deception. Labeled “spoken word
biography,” it’s Muddy’s story, but told by a dulcet-toned British man. It’s not very compelling.

Many labels are reissuing a lot of great music, and it’s possible to hear what Muddy would have heard as he was coming up in Mississippi and Chicago, and also to hear how his influence
shaped music that followed him.

You could do a lot worse than starting with the Delmark Records catalog (www.delmark.com, or visiting their Jazz Record Mart at 444 N. Wabash in Chicago). They offer plenty of Mississippi Delta
blues, and even more Chicago music. In addition to the previously mentioned Little Walter and Sunnyland Slim CDs, they have an extensive Junior Wells catalog, and such goodies as Morris Pejoe and
Magic Sam. For a sampling of their modern releases, try Lurrie Bell, Rockin’ Johnny, Little Arthur Duncan, or the Tail Dragger.

The Testament label has enjoyed an extensive reissuing through the HMG / Hightone label (www.hightone.com). Pete Welding made sure he got in the right place with the right people. In addition to
his great Otis Spann recordings (which feature Muddy), look for Robert Nighthawk, Houston Stackhouse, Jimmy Rogers — or sample several of these artists on one of the many compilations (my
favorite, today, is
Chicago Blues at Home
).

Alligator (www.alligator.com), Rounder (www.rounder.com), and Rooster (www.roosterblues.com) are good sources for modern and reissued blues. Rooster has reissued
And This Is Maxwell
Street,
extensive audio recordings from a 1964 documentary that capture the sound of the street. Note Alligator’s Elvin Bishop and Little Smokey Smothers collaboration
That’s
My Partner,
and their
Deluxe Edition
series of “best-ofs,” especially Johnny Winter and Hound Dog Taylor. Old and new on Black Top include the late Freddie King and the
recent Rusty Zinn, who gets a 1950s sound in the twenty-first century. Earwig (www.earwigmusic.com) has good Honeyboy Edwards and Sunnyland Slim; Blind Pig (www.blindpigrecords.com) has Big Bill
Morganfield, Bob Margolin, and Magic Slim; check Silvertone (www.silvertonerecords.com) for Buddy Guy. Catfish Records (www.catfishrecords.com), an English label, has issued
The Roots of Muddy
Waters,
a great compilation of songs that Muddy drew from.

Vanguard Records (www.vanguardrecords.com) has become a contender in the blues reissue market. In addition to their compilations from Newport Festivals and their pretty decent and reasonably
priced thematic compilations (
Blues with a Feeling, Great Harp Players, Frett’n the Blues
), they have reissued the
Chicago
/
The Blues
/
Today!
series in
one package. There’s good stuff under the Fantasy umbrella (www.fantasyjazz.com) from a variety of labels, especially Bluesville, Takoma, and Stax. Ryko (www.rykodisc.com) was issuing much of
the Tradition and Everest labels; Putumayo (www.putamayo.com) has combined some African roots with its blues legacy, such as the compilation
From Mali to Memphis.
Dig Birdman Records,
Smithsonian / Folkways, Easy Baby, Amina, Acoustech, Document, Yazoo, and Arhoolie (John Littlejohn’s
Slidin’ Home
belongs in every home).

These addresses are good places to get started for Muddy Waters and blues on the Internet:

G
ENERAL
R
EADING
S
UGGESTIONS

For a broad history of the blues, the best place to start is Robert Palmer’s
Deep Blues.
Get to know the players by reading their profiles in Peter Guralnick’s two
collections,
Feel Like Going Home
and
Lost Highway.
His
Searching for Robert Johnson
is also a good macroview of the Delta. (Guralnick’s
Sweet Soul Music
is the best place to learn about soul music, which evolved from blues.)

My feel for Delta life was greatly enhanced by
The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing,
the recent autobiography of Honeyboy Edwards. Other good sources for insight into early blues
include Henry Townsend and Bill Greensmith’s
A Blues Life
and Mance Lipscomb’s autobiography,
I Say Me for a Parable.
James Agee writes beautifully about the
sharecropper’s life in
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
David Cohn’s
Where I Was Born and Raised,
though somewhat paternalistic (or perhaps because of that), was a
well-written overview of 1920s Delta life from a white perspective. Gayle Dean Wardlow’s
Chasin’ That Devil Music
includes much of the author’s research about early blues
artists and life in Mississippi; it’s fascinating reading, comes with a CD, and is probably best appreciated after gaining an introduction to the musicians elsewhere. Sit in on interview
after interview with the greats in Jim O’Neal and Amy van Singel’s
The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from
Living Blues
Magazine
(Routledge). Hear them speak
in Paul Trynka and Val Wilmer’s
Portrait of the Blues.

Paul Oliver has written extensively about blues. The text to read first is
Conversation with the Blues,
a mosaic compiled from his firsthand accounts of growing up with the blues. It
has been recently republished, with many photographs added, and comes with a CD of his field recordings.

For a history of Chicago blues, Mike Rowe’s aptly titled
Chicago Blues
has a lot of information and a lot of pictures. The best factual account of the Chess Brothers, and also a
good history of the recording scene in Chicago, is Nadine Cohodas’s
Spinning Blues into Gold.
Finally, there are two books that focus on Muddy Waters.
Bossmen,
by James
Rooney, is essentially an oral history, told almost solely in Muddy’s words.
Muddy Waters: The Mojo Man,
by Sandra B. Tooze, uses an extended Muddy discography as its foundation,
tracing his life through his recordings.

Muddy Waters was a decade and a half dead when I began this book, and many of the people from his early years had also passed away. I am indebted to the many researchers and writers who
documented the lives and careers of Muddy and his cohorts. While working on this book, I was never without the pressure of time: a
month after I met Jimmy Rogers, he found
out he had cancer, and a few months later, he was dead. Junior Wells followed weeks thereafter.

For Muddy’s voice, I relied heavily on several key interviews, graciously provided by Peter Guralnick, Jim O’Neal and Amy van Singel, Margaret McKee and Fred Chisenhall (on file at
the Memphis–Shelby County Public Library and Information Center), Link Wyler and Russ Ragsdale (provided by Richard Chalk), the estate of Pete Welding, Charles Shaar Murray, and Paul Oliver.
Also, Paul Trynka, John Brisbin, Larry Lasker, Nadine Cohodas, Matt Sakakeeny, Stanley Booth, and Jas Obrecht were kind enough to share their interviews of Muddy’s cohorts with me. I drew
from many other printed interviews, all cited herein. Reading interviews with Muddy for more than five years, I saw many of the same questions asked of him repeatedly. I have documented the
instances when I have combined answers from different interviews on the same subjects.

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes from the following people come from my interviews: Terry Abrahamson, Goldie Abram, Georges Adins, Billy Boy Arnold, Mary Austin, Chris Barber, Bruce Bastin,
Bill Bentley, Elvin Bishop, Joe Boyd, R. L. Burnside, Scott Cameron, Marshall Chess, Francis Clay, Amelia “Cookie” Cooper, Pete Cosey, James Cotton, Freddie Crutchfield, Terry Cryer,
Chuck D., Carl Dugger, Esmond Edwards, Honeyboy Edwards, Mary Emerson, Peter Guralnick, Buddy Guy, Levon Helm, Magnolia Hunter, Pete Hunter, Manuel Jackson Jr., Calvin Jones, Mike Kappus, Robert
Koester, Alan Lomax, Pee Wee Madison, Bob Margolin, Lucille McClenton, Bob Messinger, Bill Morganfield, Elve Morganfield, Joseph Morganfield, Marva Morganfield, Mercy Della Morganfield, Robert
Morganfield, Jimmy Lee Morris, Charles Shaar Murray, Charlie Musselwhite, Dave Myers, Mark Naftalin, Nate Notkin, Jim O’Neal, Paul Oliver, Paul Oscher, Harold and Barbara Pendleton, Pinetop
Perkins, Al Perry, Sylvia Pitcher, Jerry Portnoy, Barbara Purro, Keith Richards, Beulah Richardson, Richard “Harmonica Slim” Riggins, Jimmy Rogers, Bobby Rush, Otis Rush, Dick Shurman,
Willie Smith, Little Smokey Smothers, Andrew “A. W.” Stephenson, Bobby Stovall, Willie Strandberg, Dick Waterman, Marie Stovall Webster, Norma Weiland, Frank Weston, Charles “Bang
Bang” Williams, Val Wilmer, Johnny Winter, and Bill Wyman.