Soul Strut 100: #91 - Muddy Waters - Electric Mud

RAJ

I will slowly be unveiling the Top 100 Soul Strut Related Records as Voted by the Strutters Themselves.

#91 - Muddy Waters - Electric Mud



Please discuss your reactions to this record. The thread will be archived later here.

Wikipidea

Electric Mud is a studio album by Muddy Waters. Released in 1968, it is a concept album which imagines Muddy Waters as a psychedelic musician. Producer Marshall Chess suggested that Muddy Waters record experimental, psychedelic blues tracks with members of Rotary Connection in an attempt to revive the blues singer's career.

The album peaked at #127 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart. It was controversial for its fusion of electric blues with psychedelic elements, but was influential on psychedelic rock bands of the era.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Mud

Related Threads

...which Muddy Waters LP?

Cadet Concept

Dismissed Upon Release But Standing Strong Today

cadet concept favorites?

Duderonomy

I Just Wanna Make Love To You is great if a bit long. Tom Cat FTW!

I have a gatefold w/ black cover and disturbing picture of Muddy in what looks like a bishop's robe.
Not sure if this is a second pressing or something, got it in a trade w/ Belson BITD.

RAJ

Mannish Boy.

mini

Herbert Harper??s Free Press!

I think I read from somewhere that Jimi Hendrix at some point used to listen this song before going to stage.

Delay

i'll take the howling wolf one over the muddy waters, but yeah....tomcat's my theme music

stratasphere

She's Alright because they slipped The Temptation's - My Girl in at the end, and Tom Cat and Mannish Boy just because. One of my favorite psych/blues fusion lps.

stratasphere

Duderonomy said:

I Just Wanna Make Love To You is great if a bit long. Tom Cat FTW!

I have a gatefold w/ black cover and disturbing picture of Muddy in what looks like a bishop's robe.
Not sure if this is a second pressing or something, got it in a trade w/ Belson BITD.

I've ran across that one a couple of times but the records were skated. I think it may have been produced around the same time as the white cover. I found a British pressing about 11 years ago with a white sleeve and rainbow lettering similar to the US pressing with the chess piece logo on the labels. I tried to Google it, but I haven't been able to find a picture for it.

pickwick33

As I've said before, I like it, but it is a novelty record, plain and simple. Nothing to take seriously.

Only his version of the Stones'"Let's Spend The Night Together" is good enough to stand with his classic earlier Chess sides. IMO.

Duderonomy said:

I have a gatefold w/ black cover and disturbing picture of Muddy in what looks like a bishop's robe.

I think that was supposed to be a reach-out to the hippies whom this album is aimed at.

Not sure if this is a second pressing or something, got it in a trade w/ Belson BITD.

It possibly is, if it's on Cadet Concept.

Later on, when All Platinum acquired the Chess masters in the seventies, they reissued Electric Mud without the gatefold. And the formerly color photo on the back cover was now black & white.

RAJ

Diggers like it, critics hate it?

Duderonomy

pickwick33 said:

Not sure if this is a second pressing or something, got it in a trade w/ Belson BITD.

It possibly is, if it's on Cadet Concept.

Later on, when All Platinum acquired the Chess masters in the seventies, they reissued Electric Mud without the gatefold. And the formerly color photo on the back cover was now black & white.

Black cover, gatefold. Black & white picture on the inner of Muddy in robe, looking like a pervert.
Cover on back (backstage dressing room or something?) in colour.

It's Cadet Concept.

AKallDay

i agree w pickwick that let's spend the night together cover is wicked.
i love this whole album, i have both the black and the white covers and i listen to it often cover to cover.

Horseleech

Initially released with both versions of the black and white cover, gatefold, color back and booklet. Predominantly white cover seems a little more common, at least in the NYC area. Cadet Concept.

70's issue with green label, still gatefold and color back , no booklet. Seems rarer than first pressing. Chess.

Crappy All Platinum issue late 70's/early 80's.

I've never seen a US blue label chess pressing

pickwick33

Duderonomy said:

pickwick33 said:

Not sure if this is a second pressing or something, got it in a trade w/ Belson BITD.

It possibly is, if it's on Cadet Concept.

Later on, when All Platinum acquired the Chess masters in the seventies, they reissued Electric Mud without the gatefold. And the formerly color photo on the back cover was now black & white.

Black cover, gatefold. Black & white picture on the inner of Muddy in robe, looking like a pervert.
Cover on back (backstage dressing room or something?) in colour.

It's Cadet Concept.

Sounds like an original pressing to me.

We've discussed before about the variations on the front cover (some have black print on white background, others have white print on black background). I get the drift that both covers were released simultaneously, ala the Rolling Stones' Some Girls ten years later.

And as far as the pic on the back, I think that was the counter of the barber shop where Muddy was shown getting his process together in the booklet that came with.

pickwick33

Horseleech said:

Crappy All Platinum issue late 70's/early 80's.

It would be mid-late 70s, as All Platinum had become Sugarhill by late '79.

I've never seen a US blue label chess pressing

I doubt if one exists. Electric Mud was meant to come out on Cadet Concept from the gitgo. I imagine that by the time Cadet Concept was retired, they had stopped using the old two-shades-of-blue design.

DJ_Enki

stratasphere said:

Tom Cat and Mannish Boy just because

Yeah, this.

I can't front like I'm some sort of big-time blues head, and of course, I got up on this album in the first place because Cypress Hill braekz, yo! It's a fascinating oddball of a record, though -- so left-field, but not in a kitschy sort of way.

RAJ

I supposed I should just check, but is there live footage of fuzz guitar era Muddy Waters ?

motown67

Supposedly not only critics didn't like it, but Water didn't either. He just did it because Marshall Chess I believed pushed him into it. Marshall had gone off to college and got hooked into all the Hippy culture going on and wanted to get into that market.

pickwick33

RAJ said:

I supposed I should just check, but is there live footage of fuzz guitar era Muddy Waters ?

There is, but you won't hear any fuzz. Muddy pointedly didn't do any songs from his "psychedelic" albums in concert. If it was a remake of an older song, he did it the older way.

pcmr

can't go wrong type purchase
mannish boy is an all-time song
i like it but the cover is always stained

holmes

Strict Blues fans hate this LP, I was discussing it with a friend just last weekend, he is very much a blues dude. I like it, but it works if you approach it for what it is from a soul/funk/psych standpoint, not if you're expecting to find some great Muddy Waters statement.

SIRUS

anybody have a decent rip of this?

SoulOnIce

Possum Tom said:

i'll take the howling wolf one over the muddy waters

yeah, me too, first thing I thought - wonder if the Wolf is on here too and charted higher. I always felt like the Wolf album was more coherent and, despite the title of the album, he seems more comfortable in the psych-rock attempt than Muddy does, whether it was forced upon them or not. The Waters LP has some moments but has always sounded forced and a little fake to me - the best way I can put it is that the Waters LP sounds like they overdubbed a modern rock band onto a tape of a standard Muddy Waters session, while the Wolf record sounds like he is actually involved in the process, sitting in with the band.

Ever since picking up the other Muddy Waters LP on Cadet Concept, "After the Rain," from a year later, I've felt that it is a far more successful attempt to update his sound for the late 60's youth. It sounds more like an actual album by Muddy, with a more coherent mix of trad blues and modern rock styles.

finelikewine

Added to the spotify soultrut top 100 list:
http://open.spotify.com/user/1121775350/playlist/54CR4Ce88uFkr6shaMHxVX

(personalliy speaking, I like his earlies abums a lot more. This one seems like a novelty record to me.)

fishmongerfunk

but it's a really great novelty record. my feeling is that it needs to be divorced from the rest of his catalogue and the context in which it was produced (to cash in with the hippies) and just enjoyed it for what it is..

stratasphere

crabmongerfunk said:

but it's a really great novelty record. my feeling is that it needs to be divorced from the rest of his catalogue and the context in which it was produced (to cash in with the hippies) and just enjoyed it for what it is..

Agreed.

SoundOutLoud

His cover of "Lets Spend the Night Together" is wild! Its so different from either the OG Stones version, or the Bowie cover. Neither could have done it like that and in many ways the song is much more raw. I love it, the music is damn near transcendent.

willie_fugal

some interesting stuff in that wiki article...

"In place of Muddy Waters' regular musicians were Gene Barge, Pete Cosey, Roland Faulkner, Morris Jennings, Louis Satterfield, Charles Stepney and Phil Upchurch."

"Peaking at #127 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart, it was Muddy Waters' first album to hit on the Billboard and Cash Box charts."

"According to Robert Gordon in Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters, the valet of Jimi Hendrix later told Pete Cosey that Hendrix would listen to 'Herbert Harper's Free Press News' for inspiration before performing. Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones cited Electric Mud as the inspiration for the riff of 'Black Dog'."

The_Hook_Up

I got the LP when I was in my discovery/obsession phase of electric Miles Davis when I was in college...an older head told me Pete Cosey played on it, so I scooped it. I had a bootleg video of Dark Magus era Miles and I was fascinated with the big dude with the huge Afro playing moisy guitar and wanted to hear more. I liked it, but my girlfriend at that time ws all into blues and roots stuff and she said it was the worst record she ever heard..ha ha

milliondollars

i think this deserves to be in the top 100.

most people won't understand me but for me this is my all time favorite album. so crazy! i must have heard it at least a hundred times...

ako

SoulOnIce said:

Possum Tom said:

i'll take the howling wolf one over the muddy waters

yeah, me too, first thing I thought - wonder if the Wolf is on here too and charted higher. I always felt like the Wolf album was more coherent and, despite the title of the album, he seems more comfortable in the psych-rock attempt than Muddy does, whether it was forced upon them or not. The Waters LP has some moments but has always sounded forced and a little fake to me - the best way I can put it is that the Waters LP sounds like they overdubbed a modern rock band onto a tape of a standard Muddy Waters session, while the Wolf record sounds like he is actually involved in the process, sitting in with the band.

whoo, my thoughts exactly.

i have a couple copies of electric mud, i see it way more often than i'd expect. "tom cat" is fucking INSANE. the rest has its moments and BrAeKzz but honestly i never put it on and listen all the way through. the howlin' wolf record on the other hand, i only have in mp3 form, and it's gotten many, MANY plays. i'd love to find a copy out in the field but it has yet to happen. far superior in my opinion. electric mud feels like a novelty record straight up, the howlin wolf one sounds like they spent some time with it. its beautiful.

BallzDeep

SoulOnIce said:

first thing I thought - wonder if the Wolf is on here too and charted higher.

yeah me too, it's gotta be.