ALBUMS THAT DESERVE ANOTHER LISTEN

Muddy Waters - The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album (1975)

 01. Why Are People Like That (3:37)
 02. Going Down Main Street (4:16)
 03. Born With Nothing (5:23)
 04. Caldonia (6:20)
 05. Funny Sounds (4:36)
 06. Love, Deep As The Ocean (5:15)
 07. Let The Good Times Roll (5:15)
 08. Kansas City (5:12)
 09. Fox Squirrel (3:54)

Personnel:

Muddy Waters: vocal/guitar
Pinetop Perkins: piano
Paul Butterfield: harmonica
Sammy Lawhorn: guitar
Bob Margolin: guitar
Fred Carter Jr: bass/guitar
Levon Helm: bass/drums
Garth Hudson: accordion/keyboards/saxophone
Howard Johnson: saxophone

Recorded February 6 & 7, 1975 at Bearsville's Studio, Turtle Creek, Woodstock, New York.

Reviews:

When The Band's drummer Levon Helm set up a Woodstock-based recording studio and production company in 1975, his first client was the legendary bluesman Muddy Waters. Surrounding him with familiar sidemen Pinetop Perkins and Bob Margolin, plus rock and blues stalwarts Garth Hudson on accordion and organ, Paul Butterfield on harp, and Howard Johnson on saxophone, the 60-year-old Waters responded with the smoothest and most supple singing of his career. These two sessions are as delightful as any in his long association with Chess Records, and they signify his last album with that label. Among this Grammy Award-winning work's highlights are Muddy's original composition "Born with Nothing," featuring his stinging signature slide; his joyful R&B covers of "Let the Good Times Roll," Wilbert Harrison's "Kansas City," and Louis Jordan's "Caledonia," this last graced by a looping Hudson accordion solo; and the previously unreleased bonus track, "Fox Squirrel".

Recorded in 1975, The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album was the brainchild of the Band's Levon Helm and producer/songwriter Henry Glover. At the time, the duo's production company, RCO, had recently set up shop in a barn-turned-studio in Woodstock, New York, and Muddy Waters was their first client. The album, born of a unique merger of top-flight talent (Waters' touring band plus the cream of the musicians then living in and around Woodstock), is one of the loosest, swingiest records that Waters ever cut, and features such musicians as blues-harp great Paul Butterfield, Helm and Garth Hudson (of the Band), guitarist Bob Margolin and keyboardist Willie "Pinetop" Perkins (from Waters' band), and renowned session players Fred Carter and Howard Johnson.

The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album includes five original songs written by Waters ("Going Down to Main Street," "Born With Nothing," "Funny Sounds," "Love, Deep as the Ocean" and the previously unreleased CD-only bonus track, Fox Squirrel) plus covers of Louis Jordan's "Let the Good Times Roll" and Caldonia, Bobby Charles' "Why Are People Like That" and Leiber & Stoller's Kansas City. The album was to be the last that Muddy Waters would record for Chess. It was, however, a memorable farewell.

The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album was awarded the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording.

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