Muddy Waters' "Electric Mud" - C/D?

'Electric Mud' is available, and lists cheap, at least in the States. It really does sound a lot more like a Funkadelic record (not least as 'Tomcat' was plagiarized by George--unless vice versa--for "I Call My Baby Pussycat") than it does any other Muddy Waters record I can think of.

And yep, it's classic in my house at least.

I was hoping that this was going to be another psychxxxploitation monster - Lightning Hopkins with some of the 13th Floor Elevators, released in 68(?) on International Artists, but it turned out to be mostly pish. Bastard.

Most notably, he was a member of Miles Davis's greatest electric band. He can be heard on *Agartha* *Pangea* *Dark Magus* and *Get Up With It*...check out *Agartha* first. Completely agree with Phil Freeman on Cosey. He's unbelievable. Pfunk and Miles Davis were the two best rock bands of the '70s IMO.

Oops. Sorry. He plays on at least one of the Burnt Sugar records.

None of it is anything like Electric Mud though. That records is nuts.

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 downhome 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

It gets 1.5 stars. After The Rain gets just one.

This is trickier than it might seem. Depends on what you want out of an album. Does Pete Cosey sound good on Electric Mud? Absolutely. Does Muddy Waters? No.

Sanctimony about Da Blooze has waned a lot since the album was initially slammed. And, any misguided marketing strategy behind it can be ignored now. It's easy enough to lift it away from the Muddy Waters catalog entirely.

I hate the capitalization of races in people's writing. It's "black," not "Black." (As a side note, ever noticed that many writers who capitalize "black" don't capitalize "white"?)

I agree. Of course I've busted myself doing it more than once.

Pete Cosey also plays on the two Phil Cohran Artistic Heritage Ensemble records (one of which has been reissued). He *might* play on that Spencer Jackson Family record; I'd have to check my copy and it's not to hand.

I doesn't surprise me that Unterberger doesn't like the record, that joyless bastard.

In "Godfathers and Sons," director Marc Levin ("Slam" and "Gladiator Days: Anatomy of a Prison Murder") introduces Public Enemy rapper Chuck D to Marshall Chess, the son of Phil Chess, who along with his brother, Leonard, had the prestigious Chicago blues label Chess Records. The two go on a journey to revise public opinion of one of the worst blues albums ever issued, "Electric Mud." Produced by the younger Chess in 1968, the set featured Muddy Waters in a psychedelic-jazz fusion setting.

It turns out this is the album that started Chuck D's relationship with the blues so he and Chess work to make a contemporary version of the set by pairing hip-hop artists with some of the original "Electric Mud" musicians. The premise is crazy but Chess and Chuck D so admire "Electric Mud" and think their plan is so great that the viewer learns to love their scheme.

If I'm not mistaken, the revisionist view of "Electric Mud" comes from the efforts of Robert Gordon in his bio of Mr. Morganfield; an effort to grab some turf, you know? It ain't all that, that LP. But I do love Pete Cosey.

I'm not sure who was playing guitar for P-Funk when I saw 'em live way back when. Maybe sacriligeous me needs to listen to Cosey some more.

The bottom line is there can never be a single correct answer to questions like this, because our systems of racial classification are basically a bunch of arbitrary BS, and have no basis in logic or science.

More importantly though, the Electric Mud album is fantastic. "Tom Cat" kills me when the saxophone in the left channel starts wylin out at the end of the first verse. That record gets me amped like an MOP track.

It's simple, really. Cosey's the one shooting out all the wildass post-Hendrixian fireworks, and Lucas is doing all the one-chord James Brown comping that anchors the music, along with Michael Henderson's bass.

The idea that there's any meaningful rivalry between these two singers … well, died with both of them. Folks like one or the other, but the universe would be an even more wretched place than it is without Burnett and Morganfield in the house together.

EVERYTHING GONNA BE ALLRIGHT THIS MORNING

OH YEAH.

I got a copy of After the Rain on the street in Brooklyn for $6 - pretty good, altho it sounds like Cosey's only on about half of it. Second side is pretty tame.

wtf Howlin Wolf's Message to the Young not domestically available...? every copy I see on ye internets is like $30+, with no artwork or reviews or personnel info or anything

No way the music on Mud could ever be nearly as humiliating as that absurd kaftan-and-pompadour getup Muddy sports in the back cover photo. (And it isn't, thankfully.)

I've got the "Evil"/"Tail Dragger" single but still kinda regret not buying the only copy of Wolf's New Album I've ever seen. But it was 20 years ago and the critical consensus hadn't yet reversed itself back then.

The best thing about ILM is stumbling on these old, revived, threads about shit you never get to talk about.

Only heard the Mud once or twice but the Wolf is one of those few legendary titles that not only can you pull out to amaze your geeky friends, but when you play it for them... it actually lives up to the hype.

Pete Cosey is rumored to still be living in the Chicago burbs somewhere. I got to go to the Bill Laswell soundstage filming out at WBBM, which was somewhat of a clusterfuck, as you can imagine, Cosey turned up, weighing about 300 lbs and spend most of the few minutes he had on stage (at the end, during some jam redux) sitting in a chair trying to lean over and fiddle with some guitar effects. I surmise that that means he's on a Laswell production somewhere (anybody?).

There're also some boot Miles DVDs with him wailing away.

There's also been a 2nd Phil Cohran CD reissue since the above comments and the Aestuarium one is slowly fading out of print w/Jaime having moved to Rotterdam and Hefty apparently calling it a day. We're down to our last few vinyl copies (the label is out) and I don't know how ther CD stock is and you should really own this album as kind of the missing link between Sun Ra and Earth Wind and Fire (or something).

And in the same lineage check out the Pieces of Peace album that's beng reissued, or been reissued, or something.

Muddy's After the Rain is worth seeking out just to hear "Bottom of the Sea".

i'm sure i've said this before myself (especially since someone emailed me about it years ago). absolutely love this song and it's on my site right now (will be taken down on monday)
http://www.robotsinheat.com/trax/BottomoftheSea.mp3

haven't heard Cosey on any Laswell stuff but its been awhile since I bought any Laswell... last I saw Cosey was on that Electric Miles DVD and yeah he's like 300 lbs but still great

Phil Cohran...? I don't think I've ever heard of him (unless he's mentioned in Serious As Your Life somewhere) but love this pic

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/pic200/drp600/p649/p64935ca7nb.jpg

On Aghartha Pete Cosey makes it sound like he's playing guitar from another dimension. That shit's insane.

Can't believe anyone with even a passing interest in the blues (or rock and roll for that matter) could dislike After The Rain.