The Complete Plantation Recordings

Performer: Muddy Waters
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: THE COMPLETE PLANTATION RECORDINGS contains previously unreleased material, including 13 original songs, 5 alternate versions, and 4 interviews with Muddy Waters. This compilation also includes an interview with original co-producer Alan Lomax, and several rare, very early photos from The McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters) Estate who licenced this collection. Personnel includes: Muddy Waters (guitar, vocals); Percy Thomas (guitar); Henry "Son" Simms (violin); Louis Ford (mandolin). Reissue producer: Andy McKaie. Recorded on Stovall's Plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi between 1941 and 1942. Includes liner notes by Mary Katherine Aldin. Digitally remastered by Erick Labson (MCA Music Media Studios). Personnel: Muddy Waters (vocals, guitar); Percy Thomas (vocals, guitar); Louis Ford (vocals, mandolin); Son Simms (guitar, violin); Charles Berry (guitar). Liner Note Author: Mary Katherine Aldin. Recording information: Clarksdale, MS; Stovall, MS. Photographer: Junie Osaki. The COMPLETE PLANTATION RECORDINGS offers a fascinating glimpse at one of the great figures in blues history-long before he could possibly have imagined his future fame. Folklorist Alan Lomax made these field recordings of Waters in 1941, when the budding artist was still a sharecropper in Mississippi. Unlike the later electrified recordings Waters made in Chicago, these sides primarily feature Waters soloing on acoustic guitar (although mandolin and fiddle accompany him, in the hokum style of Cannon's Jug Stompers, on five tracks). This disc would be invaluable if only for its historic significance, but the recordings here stand on their own as classics of the country blues style. Interspersed among the 18 songs are four equally fascinating interview segments, during which Waters repeatedly reveals his artistic debt to Delta blues legend Son House. Selections include early versions of "I Can't Be Satisfied" (here called "I Be's Troubled") and "Walkin' Blues" (here entitled "Country Blues"), as well as several religious numbers that demonstrate the influence of Blind Willie Johnson on Waters' early music.

Rolling Stone (9/2/93, p.64) - "...[Waters] made his first recordings in Mississippi, [but] only a smattering of those sides ever made it onto an album, and that's why [THE COMPLETE PLANTATION RECORDINGS] seems such a revelation..." Entertainment Weekly (10/1/93, p.56) - Rating: A+ Musician (10/93, p.93) - "...the interview segments [on THE COMPLETE PLANTATION RECORDINGS] are strange stuff, but the slide guitar could make angels cry....highly recommended..."

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.

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