Electric Mud

Performer: Muddy Waters
Engineer: Stu Black
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Personnel: Muddy Waters (vocals); Phil Upchurch, Roland Faulkner, Pete Cosey (guitar); Gene Barge (tenor sax); Charles Stepney (organ); Louis Satterfield (bass); Morris Jennings (drums). Producers: Marshall Chess, Charles Stepney, George Barge. Reissue producer: Andy McKaie. Recorded at Ter Mar Studios, Chicago, Illinois, May 1968. Originally released on Cadet Concept (314). Includes liner notes by Mark Humphrey and Marshall Chess. Digitally remastered by Erick Labson (MCA Music Media Studios, North Hollywood, California). In an attempt to make Muddy more sellable to his newly found white audience, Chess lumbered him with Hendrix-influenced psychedelic blues arrangements for Electric Mud. Commercially, actually, the results weren't bad; Marshall Chess claims it sold between 150,000 and 200,000 copies. Musically, it was as ill-advised as putting Dustin Hoffman into a Star Wars epic. Guitarists Pete Cosey and Phil Upchurch are very talented players, but Muddy's brand of down-home electric blues suffered greatly at the hands of extended fuzzy solos. Muddy and band overhaul classics like "I Just Want to Make Love to You" and "Hoochie Coochie Man," and do a ludicrous cover of "Let's Spend the Night Together"; wah-wah guitars and occasional wailing soprano sax bounce around like loose basketballs. It's a classically wrongheaded, crass update of the blues for a modern audience. The 1996 CD reissue adds interesting historical liner notes. ~ Richie Unterberger Often derided by cynics who see it as an ill-conceived attempt to update Muddy's sound, ELECTRIC MUD actually makes an odd kind of sense. In retrospect, its mating of Muddy's Chicago blues with a Cream-like, semi-psychedelic blues-rock sound merely places the blues godfather in amidst the world he helped inspire, if not create. Heavy blues-rock bands of the late '60s like Cream and Led Zeppelin would never have existed had Muddy not harnessed the power of electricity as a vehicle for his big-sounding blues in the '50s. ELECTRIC MUD is dominated by a fuzz guitar so unabashedly over-the-top it's downright endearing. All the trappings of the period are thrown into the mix: funky/heavy grooves, fuzz bass, wah-wah pedal, etc. There's even a rush of backwards tapes at the beginning of a rocked-up take on "Mannish Boy." 30 years later, hardcore blues artists like R.L. Burnside would benefit from an analogous approach by working with samples and loops, so hindsight makes this album seem more canny than misguided (it did create a marked increase in Muddy's poor late-'60s record sales). Besides, it's worth the price of admission just to see the photos that show Muddy's trademark "conk" hairdo in various stages of preparation.

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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