Electric Mud is the fifth studio album by Muddy Waters, with members of Rotary Connection playing as his backing band. Released in 1968, it presents Muddy Waters as a psychedelic musician. Producer Marshall Chess suggested that Muddy Waters record it in an attempt to appeal to a rock audience.
The album peaked at number 127 on Billboard 200 album chart. It was controversial for its fusion of electric blues with psychedelic elements.
History
The 1960s saw Marshall Chess seeking to introduce Muddy Waters' music to a younger audience; Chess Records, Waters' record label, founded by Marshall's father, Leonard Chess, released a series of compilation albums of Muddy Waters' older music repackaged with psychedelic artwork.[1]
The next project Chess conceived was Electric Mud, a psychedelic rockconcept album;[3][4] Marshall later stated, "I came up with the idea of Electric Mud to help Muddy make money. It wasn't to bastardize the blues. It was like a painting, and Muddy was going to be in the painting. It wasn't to change his sound, it was a way to get it to that market."[3]
Chess hoped the new albums would sell well among fans of psychedelic rock bands influenced by Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.[5] According to Muddy Waters, "Quite naturally, I like a good-selling record. I was looking at it because I played for so many of these so-called hippies that I thought probably I could reach them."[5]
Production
To provide the psychedelic sound Chess sought for the album, he assembled "the hottest, most avant gardejazz rock guys in Chicago":[3]Gene Barge, Pete Cosey, Roland Faulkner, Morris Jennings, Louis Satterfield, Charles Stepney and Phil Upchurch.[6] According to one account of the album's recording, Cosey, Upchurch and Jennings joked about calling the group "The Electric Niggers".[6] According to Marshall Chess, "We were going to call them the Electric Niggers, but my dad wouldn't let me."[3]
The album incorporates use of wah-wah pedal and fuzzbox.[7] Marshall Chess augmented the rhythm of Muddy Waters' live band with the use of electronic organ and saxophone.[7]Blues purists criticized the album's psychedelic sound.[5] According to Marshall Chess, "It was never an attempt to make Muddy Waters a psychedelic artist; it was a concept album like David Bowie being Ziggy Stardust."[5] Muddy Waters said of the album's sound, "That guitar sounds just like a cat – meow – and the drums have a loping, busy beat."[5]
According to Buddy Guy, "[Muddy Waters couldn't] feel this psychedelic stuff at all... and if the feeling is gone, that's it. You can't get too busy behind a singer. You've got to let him sing it."[5] Muddy Waters' previous albums replicated the sound of his live performances.[5] Working with a studio band rather than his own was problematic for Muddy Waters, who could not perform material from the album live. He stated "What the hell do you have a record for if you can't play the first time it's out? I'm so sick of that... If you've got to have big amplifiers and wah-wahs and equipment to make you guitar say different things, well, hell, you can't play no blues."[5]
The title of the album did not refer to the use of electric guitar, as Muddy Waters had played the instrument since he first signed with Chess Records. The use of the term "electric" is used in a psychedelic context.[5]
Release
Electric Mud was released in 1968 with a simple black and white cover that did not make it obvious that the music on the album was psychedelic. The album's inner spread featured photographs of Muddy Waters having his hair processed at a beauty parlor.[1]
On November 19, 1996, the album was reissued on compact disc by Chess Records.[9] On November 22, 2011, Electric Mud and After the Rain were combined on a single compact disc by BGO Records.[10] A new vinyl edition[11] was released by Third Man Records in November 2017.
Electric Mud sold 150,000 copies within the first six weeks of release.[2] Peaking at number 127 on Billboard magazine's Billboard 200 album chart,[14] it was Muddy Waters' first album to appear on the Billboard and Cash Box charts.[3] However, among critics and blues purists, Electric Mud is Waters' "most polarizing record", according to Waters biographer Robert Gordon.[1]
In a Rolling Stone feature, Pete Welding wrote, "'Electric Mud' does great disservice to one of the blues' most important innovators, and prostitutes the contemporary styles to which his pioneering efforts have led."[15] Although American critics panned the album, it was better received in England.[3] According to Marshall Chess, "It was the biggest Muddy Waters record we ever had at Chess, and it dropped instantly. The English accepted it; they are more eccentric."[3]
Impact, influence and legacy
Muddy Waters recorded After the Rain the following year, incorporating elements of the sound of Electric Mud. According to Cosey, "I'll never forget, as soon as I walked into the studio for the follow-up and Muddy saw me, he threw his arms around me, said 'Hey, how you doing, boy, play some of that stuff you played on that last album.'"[3]
While blues purists criticized the album, Pete Cosey learned from Jimi Hendrix's valet that Hendrix would listen to "Herbert Harper's Free Press News" from the album for inspiration before performing live.[3]
Waters later claimed that he disliked the album and its sound, and that he did not consider the album to be blues.[7] He stated, "Every time I go into Chess, [they] put some un-blues players with me [...] If you change my sound, then you gonna change the whole man."[3] In the biography The Mojo Man, Muddy Waters stated "That Electric Mud record was dogshit. But when it came out, it started selling like wild, but then they started sending them back. They said, 'This can't be Muddy Waters with all this shit going on, all this wha-wha and fuzztone.'"[16]AllMusic reviewer Richie Unterberger panned the album as being "crass".[12]
However, the album has attracted new admirers among the hip hop scene;[1] in Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed, Gene Sculatti wrote that "The rhythm seems to anticipate hip-hop by three decades."[17] Rapper Chuck D said of the album, "to me it's a brilliant record. I've played it about a thousand times. The voice and character of Muddy Waters stand above the new music. Muddy's vocals project. That's what created a hook for me to get into it: these vocals are actually pulling the music."[1] Chuck D stated that he had been introduced to Electric Mud by a member of Public Enemy, which sparked an interest in Muddy Waters' earlier work, and in roots-oriented blues.[1][18][19] Chuck D explained, "It took me a while to warm up to traditional blues. A whole new world. But the automatic thing that struck me right away was the Electric Mud thing."[1] The documentary series The Blues, produced by Martin Scorsese, depicts the recording band for Electric Mud performing with Chuck D and members of The Roots.[20]
Track listing
The original LP record cover listed the track times in seconds only.
McKinley Morganfield, known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago blues". His style of playing has been described as "raining down Delta beatitude".
Chester Arthur Burnett, better known by his stage name Howlin' Wolf, was an American blues singer and guitarist. He was at the forefront of transforming acoustic Delta blues into electric Chicago blues, and over a four-decade career, recorded blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and psychedelic rock. He is regarded as one of the most influential blues musicians of all time.
Chess Records was an American record company established in 1950 in Chicago, specializing in blues and rhythm and blues. It was the successor to Aristocrat Records, founded in 1947. It expanded into soul music, gospel music, early rock and roll, and jazz and comedy recordings, released on the Chess and its subsidiary labels Checker and Argo/Cadet. The Chess catalogue is owned by Universal Music Group and managed by Geffen Records and Universal Music Enterprises.
Cadet Records was an American record label that began as Argo Records in 1955 as the jazz subsidiary of Chess Records. Argo changed its name in 1965 to Cadet to avoid confusion with the similarly named label in the UK. Cadet stopped releasing records around 1974, when its artists were moved to Chess.
Rotary Connection was an American psychedelic soul band, formed in Chicago in 1966.
"You Shook Me" is a 1962 blues song recorded by Chicago blues artist Muddy Waters. Willie Dixon wrote the lyrics and Earl Hooker provided the instrumental backing; the song features Waters' vocal in unison with Hooker's slide-guitar melody. "You Shook Me" became one of Muddy Waters' most successful early-1960s singles and has been interpreted by several blues and rock artists.
Philip Upchurch is an American jazz and blues guitarist and bassist.
Folk Singer is the fourth studio album by Muddy Waters, released in January 1964 by Chess Records. The album features Waters on acoustic guitar, backed by Willie Dixon on string bass, Clifton James on drums, and Buddy Guy on acoustic guitar. It is Waters's only all-acoustic album. Numerous reissues of Folk Singer include bonus tracks from two subsequent sessions, in April 1964 and October 1964.
Peter Palus Cosey was an American guitarist who played with Miles Davis' band between 1973 and 1975. His fiercely flanged and distorted guitar invited comparisons to Jimi Hendrix. Cosey kept a low profile for much of his career and released no solo recorded works. He appeared on Davis's albums Get Up with It (1974), Agharta (1975), Pangaea (1976), Dark Magus (1977), and The Complete On the Corner Sessions (2007).
Marshall Chess is an American record producer, the son of Leonard Chess who co-founded Chess Records.
"Hoochie Coochie Man" is a blues standard written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. The song makes reference to hoodoo folk magic elements and makes novel use of a stop-time musical arrangement. It became one of Waters' most popular and identifiable songs and helped secure Dixon's role as Chess Records' chief songwriter.
"Forty Days and Forty Nights" is a blues song recorded by Muddy Waters in 1956. Called "a big, bold record", it spent six weeks in the Billboard R&B chart, where it reached number seven. "Forty Days and Forty Nights" has been interpreted and recorded by a variety of artists.
The Complete On the Corner Sessions is a posthumous box set by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released in the US on September 25, 2007, by Columbia Records and in the UK on September 29 on Legacy Recordings. Like other Davis box sets, the included material is taken from a wider chronology of sessions than the dates which actually produced the titular album. The Complete On the Corner Sessions compiles material from 1972 through 1975 which, due to lineup changes Davis made throughout the era, features over two dozen musicians.
The Howlin' Wolf Album is the first studio album by Howlin' Wolf, released in 1969. It features members of Rotary Connection as his backing band. The album mixed blues with psychedelic rock arrangements of several of Wolf's classic songs. Howlin' Wolf strongly disliked the album, which is noted on the album's cover art. The album peaked at number 69 on Billboard magazine's "Black Albums" chart.
After the Rain is the sixth studio album by Muddy Waters. It is the follow-up to the previous year's Electric Mud, and shares many of the same musicians. Unlike Electric Mud, After the Rain contained mostly Waters's own compositions; the songs, while still distorted, are less overtly psychedelic.
Godfathers and Sons is a documentary directed by Marc Levin. The film is part of The Blues, a seven part PBS series, with Martin Scorsese as executive producer.
The Real Folk Blues is a 1965 compilation album of Muddy Waters recordings, released on the Chess record label in January 1965. The album was the first release of The Real Folk Blues series and has since been re-released in multiple formats. The album features some of Waters' first recordings.
Fathers and Sons is the seventh studio album by the American blues musician Muddy Waters, released as a double LP by Chess Records in August 1969.
Morris Jennings was an American drummer and musician from Chicago. He recorded as Moe Jennings, M. Jennings, Maurice Jennings, Morris "Gator" Jennings, and Morris Jennings Jr.
Can't Get No Grindin' is an album by blues musician Muddy Waters released by the Chess label in 1973.
References
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gordon, Robert. "Notes: Electric Mud, After the Rain, Marshall Chess and the Players". Can't Be Satisfied. Pp. 348-349. 0-316-32849-9.
↑ Sculatti, Gene (2005). "Muddy Waters". In Cooper, Kim; Smay, David (eds.). Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed. Routledge. p.244. ISBN0-415-96998-0.
↑ Guralnick, Peter; Santelli, Robert; George-Warren, Holly; etal., eds. (2003). "Godfathers and Sons". Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey. HarperCollins. p.186. ISBN0-06-052544-4.
↑ Dick, Weissman (2005). "The New Generation of Blues Artists". Blues: The Basics. Routledge. p.151. ISBN0-415-97068-7.
↑ Woods, Paul A., ed. (2005). Scorsese: A Journey Through the American Psyche. Plexus. p.272. ISBN0-85965-355-2.
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