Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence - ROBERT FRIPP.
Information is not knowledge;
knowledge is not wisdom;
wisdom is not truth;
truth is not beauty;
beauty is not love;
love is not music;
MUSIC IS THE BEST - FRANK ZAPPA.
I think we're a little happier when we have a little music in our lives - STEVE JOBS.
Music in the soul can be heard by the universe - LAO TZU.
Rock and Roll is fire, man. FIRE. - DAVID BRIGGS.
Music grips you, gets into your soul -
GEORGE MARTIN
Active compensatory factors: Many years ago, in the early eighties, some good friends of mine - Clay and Margo, gave me a cassette copy of Folk Singer.
Woh! It was a revelation. I knew about Muddy Waters from the Band's Last Waltz, some blues compilations, and my music books, but I hadn't experienced anything like Folk Singer before.
Initially I thought this album of acoustic blues was a kind of field recording from the thirties or forties - it was a shock to learn years later that it was from 1964!
On a recent trip to Taupo I saw these two reissues and snapped them up.
The Newport album is beyond superlatives. The band is smokin' and Muddy? Incredible! Muddy at his best is as good as it gets! Just check out those dance moves at the end of that Mojo Workin' clip!
How good is that version? So good he does two incendiary versions of Got My Mojo Working back to back!!
Where do they all belong? Genius level music. Authentic genius. Muddy is the man!
Active compensatory factors: The last Muddy Waters' studio album is excellent - the man's powers are undiminished on this final set.
This one is the third in the trilogy of albums Muddy recorded with Johnny Winter for Blue Sky. It's got a slightly checkered history but it still sounds like the other two albums to me.
There is a lovely variety of material here (Johnny's slide work on I Feel Like Going Homeis terrific) and the same sense of spontaneity that the other albums have.
Where do they all belong? What a career! Starting in the 1940s - Muddy Waters has always been the real deal. Choose any recording of his and it's drenched in real life. The great thing is that as a punter you can dip into any decade and be rewarded with heartfelt blues, Muddy style.
Active compensatory factors: The Woodstock Album is Muddy's final album for Chess and he ends things on a high thanks to Levon Helm and cronies, including Garth Hudson and Paul Butterfield on some blistering harmonica.
In between that and the late career albums with Johnny Winter, comes Live in '76 - a raw set of songs broadcast on the radio from Pall's Mall in Boston.
Of the trio of Johnny Winter curated albums I have the first two essential albums (must get King Bee sometime). The band is HOT and Muddy has full command of his extraordinary powers.
Where do they all belong? And that's it for Muddy on CD. Your best bet if new to Muddy remains a Chess compilation.
Active compensatory factors: This live album was recorded during tours to promote Hard Again, and features musicians who contributed to this album - notably James Cotton, Pinetop Perkins and Johnny Winter.
This album is the pared down version (it was re-released on CDs in expanded formats) and is the more potent for it. These seven tracks are suitably raucous and loud!
Muddy died 4 years later aged 70 so these are some of the last recorded versions of some much loved songs including Mannish Boy, Baby Please Don't Go, She's Nineteen Years Old and Deep Down In Florida. Classics all!
Where do they all belong? More Muddy Waters to come on CD.
I made a compilation of blues songs for Keegan recently and it occurred to me that I write a lot about pop and rock genres and jazz from time to time but seldom about the blues. And when I do venture into the blues it's usually from a white perspective: Alvin Lee; Rory Gallagher; Eric Clapton; Paul Jones, Hot Tuna and so on. I am not sure why I haven't written more about blues favourites such as Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and Muddy Waters. I love their stuff and I love the blues!
Here's the track listing on my CD blues primer for Keegan:
Evil Gal blues – Albinia Jones
Chicago breakdown – Big Maceo
I wish you would – Billy Boy Arnold
Shake your moneymaker – Elmore James
Dust my blues – Elmore James
You don't have to go – Jimmy Reed
Sittin' here thinkin' – John Lee Hooker
Mannish Boy – Junior Wells/ Muddy Waters
Young man blues – Mose Allison
Rollin' stone – Muddy Waters
Got my mojo working – Muddy Waters
That's alright – Jimmy Rodgers
Milk cow blues – Sleepy John Estes
I'm a king bee – Slim Harpo
Good morning littleschoolgirl – Sonny Boy Williamson
Whoopin' the blues – Sonny Terry
Good morning blues – Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee
The midnight special - Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee
Smokestack lightning – The Yardbirds
How many more years – Howlin' Wolf
Moanin' at midnight – Howlin' Wolf
I'm ready – Muddy Waters
I was trying to cover as many bases as I could in roughly an hour and I think I got the balance pretty right - Chicago blues, boogie woogie, harp and guitar, white (Yardbirds and Allison), folk blues, shouters, women blues singers, dirty blues, slow blues, country blues, electric, urban blues.
It's not supposed to be comprehensive at all (I figured Keegan had heard Robert Johnson for instance) and, of course, there are many omissions and it does show my bias towards Waters/Wolf/Sonny and Brownie.
My love of the blues began properly after I watched Sonny and Brownie playing at the Nambassa music festival (late seventies I think). I remember the moment well because I was standing about ten feet from the stage with not many other people around me.
Someone led Sonny on to the stage, they settled down on their seats and Brownie started playing his guitar and tapping his foot. I watched in awe.
It was one of those epiphanies I have had from time to time as I listened and watched and grooved.
Obviously I am not alone in letting the blues strike it's chord in my soul. For some reason I never tire of the form, or get depressed when I hear it. In fact I find the tales inherent in the blues very life affirming in a Grapes Of Wrath kind of way. Hardships are overcome and have been sung about in a cathartic way since the genre began in the American south's slave plantations.
It's true that I came to many of these songs from white blues inspired acts like Hot Tuna.
Billy Boy Arnold's I Wish You Would is a case in point.
I first heard it on Hot Tuna's Hoppkov album and then they did a stonking live version on their live double - Double Dose.
I hadn't heard of Billy Boy Arnold until that point. I'm sure Jorma and Jack from Hot Tuna would be thrilled to know that they made Arnold's version accessible via their own, very different treatment.
Active compensatory factors: Many years ago, in the early eighties, some good friends of mine - Clay and Margo, gave me a cassette copy of Folk Singer. 
