Electric Mud

The album incorporates use of wah-wah pedal and fuzzbox.  Marshall Chess augmented the rhythm of Muddy Waters' live band with the use of electric organ and saxophone.  Blues purists criticized the album's psychedelic sound.  According to Marshall Chess: "It was never an attempt to make Muddy Waters a psychedelic artist; it was a concept album like David Bowie being Ziggy Stardust."  Muddy Waters said of the album's sound: "That guitar sounds just like a cat — meow — and the drums have a loping, busy beat." I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man incorporates free jazz influences, with Gene Barge performing a concert harp.  Muddy Waters performs the vocals of Let's Spend the Night Together, a cover of The Rolling Stones' 1967 single, in gospel-soul style. According to Buddy Guy: "Muddy Waters couldn't feel this psychedelic stuff at all...and if the feeling is gone, that's it. You can't get too busy behind a singer.  You've got to let him sing it."  Muddy Waters' previous albums replicated the sound of his live performances.  Working with a studio band rather than his own was problematic for Muddy Waters, who could not perform material from the album live.  He stated: "What the hell do you have a record for if you can't play the first time it's out?  I'm so sick of that...If you've got to have big amplifiers and wah-wahs and equipment to make you guitar say different things, well, hell, you can't play no blues."

Electric Mud sold 150,000 copies within the first six weeks of release.  Peaking at #127 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart, it was Muddy Waters' first album to hit on the Billboard and Cash Box charts.  In a Rolling Stone feature, Pete Welding wrote "Electric Mud does great disservice to one of the blues' most important innovators, and prostitutes the contemporary styles to which his pioneering efforts have led."  Although American critics panned the album, it was better received in England.  According to Marshall Chess: "It was the biggest Muddy Waters record we ever had at Chess, and it dropped instantly.  The English accepted it; they are more eccentric." Muddy Waters recorded After the Rain the following year, incorporating elements of the sound of Electric Mud.  According to Cosey: "I'll never forget, as soon as I walked into the studio for the follow-up and Muddy saw me, he threw his arms around me, said Hey, how you doing, boy, play some of that stuff you played on that last album."  Following strong criticism of the album, Muddy Waters claimed that he disliked the album and its sound, and that he did not consider the album to be blues.

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.  Allmusic reviewer Richie Unterberger panned the album as being "Crass." In Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed, Gene Sculatti wrote that: "The rhythm seems to anticipate hip-hop by three decades."  Chuck D stated that he had been introduced to Electric Mud by a member of Public Enemy, which sparked an interest in Muddy Waters' earlier work, and in roots-oriented blues.  The documentary series The Blues, produced by Martin Scorsese, depicts the recording band for Electric Mud performing with Chuck D and members of The Roots. Of course it is important to keep in mind that at the time, 1967 - 1970, nearly all psychedelic records were panned by reviewers because they simply weren't turned on and didn't understand the music or the movement.  When I first heard Electric Mud ... it BLEW MY MIND!

Wanderin' Spirit
July, 2014
"Electric Mud"

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