Who Made a Better Sellout: Muddy Waters vs. Howlin Wolf vs. Bo Diddley

Electric Mud is great, and the Howlin' Wolf album is amusing. I think that a greater example of their selling out was when the Wolf and Muddy did their respective "London Sessions" albums with a bunch of English rockers. Not blues at all. No.

These guys were a bit "pre-Selling-Out" if you ask me. They were in it for the money, and knew it from the get go. Shit, one of Muddy's biggest examples of his mojo was the fact that he's "Got 700 dollars/don't you mess with me."

no fucking way!!! I've never heard of this record... pdf's appraisal of the Bo Diddley stuff (the Johnny Otis produced "Where It All Began", "Black Gladiator", a couple others) is pretty spot-on. There's a lot of amazing shit, then a totally unnecessary and unconvincing cover of "Bad Moon Rising" (or in Muddy's case "My Girl").

I will report back on the Howlin Wolf record when it arrives...

I like Wolf's London sessions a lot, and I have to say that it IS blues. I mean what's not blues about it?

Lowell Fulson (then known as Lowell Fulsom) did a great psychedelic album on which he covered Paul McCartney's "Why Don't We Do It in the Road." Very good, I think it's '68 and on Kent. It's on a cassette that I need to dig out...can't recall the title right now.

I myself wish those blues guys had sold out more. The Chess esthetic is great but a bit stultifying. Or shit, can you imagine Howlin' Wolf with the Magic Band?

"While not as revolutionary as John Lee Hooker's sessions with Canned Heat, Freeform Patterns steers clear of the late-'60s psychedelic trappings that screwed up such similar sessions as Electric Mud. "

I'm going to go listen to some Howlin' Wolf...

http://blueslim.m78.com/aftertherain.jpg

Don't get too excited. It's not as great as it sounds. I'll try to YSI a track later today.

would anyone be willing to tape me a copy of "this is howlin wolf's new album"?

SURPRISINGLY GOOD EXPERIMENTAL BLUES:
- John Lee Hooker's FREE BEER & CHICKEN (1974 album with a funk band overdubbed onto some unfinished Hook tracks)
- R.L. Burnside's COME ON IN (don't ask me why - R.L. never sounded comfortable doing the techno thing, but I'll listen to this quicker than ELECTRIC MUD)

i'll listen to it when the wife get's finished with dance dance revolution

you can get most of them on cd now. that wasn't always the case. i think that explains renewed interest. i wouldn't call it a mania. they are highly entertaining records. especially if you like lotsa fuzz. and i know i do. i'm in it for the guitars. A Message To The Young is just a really cool Howlin' Wolf record with tons of fuzz. What's not to like? we aren't talking sonny bono and yma sumac. these guys could make entertaining records in their sleep. and sometimes they did. i like the raggedy vibe.

Electric Mud is not only a great album title, it's a great album.

(Although I will say that Muddy did a better version of "Let's Spend The Night Together" than the Stones!)

I still kinda like it as a goof, but not when I wanna hear some real-deal Wolf tracks, you know?

i never really got into the blues, but LOVE the fuzz and the funk, so that's why i love these albums

also, that bo diddley track where he fights w/his woman is fucking G-G-GREAT

You're right on the money - the Burnside techno album IS a novelty. But I dig it.

(Matter of fact, about 75% of the blues CD's on the Fat Possum label released since 1998 have at least a token techno track. It sounds very weird, and if the dance clubs haven't picked up on the techno blues sound by now, they never will. But the Fat Possum label WILL NOT GIVE UP...hell or high water, they're really tryin' to make this peculiar sound happen!)

"about 75% of the blues CD's on the Fat Possum label released since 1998 have at least a token techno track."

uh, this is a bit of an overstatement. there are no blues-techno tracks on any of the Fat Possum albums I own (all Jr. Kimbrough's , RL's "The Wizard", two T-Model Ford albums, Elmo Williams & Hezekiah Early LP, first Cedell Davis LP, maybe one or two others).

I think the Bo Diddley fightin-with-his-woman song is "Shut Up, Woman"...? that song's awesome. thx for the hookup Jaxon!

Bear Hite recorded it all live in the studio (with a lot of studio chatter kept in) on vintage equipment. They also built a platform for Hooker to sit on and miked it so that they got a great sound out of his foot-stomping. The first side is just Hooker playing electric guitar, talking, singing, and stomping. On the second side and the beginning of the third, he is backed up by Alan Wilson (the last recordings he made) on harmonica or piano. Wilson's harmonica work is amazing and powerful; it fully stands up to Hooker. They do an absolutely scorching "Burning Hell" that is probably the best single blues track I know. The last 6 tracks have the rest of Canned Heat (other than Hite) joining in, and constitute good, highly competent band boogie-music of the sort one would expect to hear at a Hooker performance. Quite good, but nowhere near as special as the first half.

Somewhat similar in feel and concept, but a few years later and not as unique, is the Johnny Winters-produced Muddy Waters Hard Again.

"In Philadelphia, it's worth fifty bucks."

rapidshare.de/files/12660387/HW.zip

BOO YA@!

http://www.dustygroove.com/images/products/d/diddle_bo~~_whereital_101b.jpg

I heart Black Gladiator too.

Somewhat similar in feel and concept, but a few years later and not as unique, is the Johnny Winters-produced Muddy Waters Hard Again.

Not totally unique, maybe, but hard.

I was over at my dad's place this Christmas for a big family holiday-kinda thing, and there was a very nice little iPod+speaker system that a lot of the kids (um... I guess we're all grown up now) were taking turns at, and at some point when we were all good and damn drunk (woo! family!), I popped in my iPod and cranked up Hard Again. The first time I ever heard it, it was from my stepmom's vinyl collection, so I figured at least one person would dig it, and surely everyone has heard that version of "Mannish Boy," right? But I'd never listened to it considering anyone else's ears. In under ten minutes, someone turned it way down. If the music had been changed, I wouldn't have noticed much, but someone was casting judgement on Muddy and his getting all Hard. "Too much," they said.

It's not that it's too loud (though it is) or un-Christian (ho boy) or anything so patrician, not for this part of the family -- anyone would have been fine with some old AC/DC or something nice n' nasty like that. The problem, I think, is that it's too... much.

BTW: it kills on headphones. It's very well-produced. Love this record.