Album Reviews

Sadly, during the early '60s Muddy Waters and other Chicago blues masters were better known to white English youth than to their American counterparts. Mick and Keith weren't alone in their fandom. Search YouTube and you'll find an amazing Howlin' Wolf performance before an adoring audience of well-scrubbed English white kids that was probably never repeated in America where blues was dubbed "race music" and relegated  to the ghettos.

Sadly, during the early '60s Muddy Waters and other Chicago blues masters were better known to white English youth than to their American counterparts. Mick and Keith weren't alone in their fandom. Search YouTube and you'll find an amazing Howlin' Wolf performance before an adoring audience of well-scrubbed English white kids that was probably never repeated in America where blues was dubbed "race music" and relegated  to the ghettos.

This is the second of three Winter produced Muddy Waters albums for his Blue Sky label distributed by Columbia back in the 1970’s that brought the blues veteran a well deserved dose of attention among a younger, whiter audience.

It’s kind of odd for a Muddy Waters album to be called I'm Ready as if at some point he hadn't been. This guy was road tested and ready to go, though his recording career had taken a backseat to the live gigging. The song of course is an old Willie Dixon tune that had been his last hit way back in 1956.

No attempt was made to “modernize” or update Waters’ classic Chicago blues style. In fact it sounds as if recreating the great old Chess sound was the goal and it was effectively achieved, which is more than can be said for the pairing with British rock artists that produced less than satisfactory results on the early '70s The London Muddy Waters Sessions.

The core touring band of Pinetop Perkins (piano), Bob Margolin (bass), Jimmy Rogers (guitar) and Willie Smith (drums) are joined on some tracks by harpists Big Walter Horton and Jerry Portnoy as well as by Johnny Winter and the results are foot stompin’ pleasingly hard-edged live in the studio performances that are a powerful as the ones Waters produced as a much younger man, though his singing, informed with the years is even more expressive and assured. This is not an old guy having his last fling, though he was gone five years later at just 70 years old.

The set opens with “I’m Ready” and covers “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man” “Rock Me,” “Screamin’ and Cryin” and “Good Morning Little School Girl” along with a few other new tunes that are equally strong.

Judging by the gatefold black and white photo,everyone  had a great time making the album.  You’ll have as good a time listening. The sound is quite three-dimensional, with a pronounced but pleasant presence region peak that ads a needed rough edge to the proceedings. The stage is relatively compact and very coherent with plenty of old fashioned mike leakage that helps to create a “live” sound in an era of isolation booth multi-track mono productions. Producer Winter and engineer Still knew the sound they were going for and they got it!

If your only Muddy album is Folk Singer, this one will give you the plugged in Muddy  that’s more typical of his art.