Would you believe that there\u2019s not a single Muddy Waters review on the DV? Let\u2019s fix that, shall we?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s my philosophy that if you\u2019re going to review music \u2013 or any other art form \u2013 you need to pay attention to its historical context. In 1960, the Newport Jazz Festival was only seven years old; it already had a reputation as a major center for traditional jazz. (Interestingly enough, there was a counter-festival held in protest the same year, hosted and organized by jazz great Charles Mingus. Mingus felt the NJF was too staid and traditional).<\/p>\n
Also in 1960, there was violence for the first time. Friday and Saturday saw pitched battles between the police and those who couldn\u2019t get into the festival, and over 200 people were arrested. Langston Hughes wrote a poem on Sunday called \u201cGoodbye Newport Blues,\u201d and it was assumed the festival was done for. While the world was still a few years from the major social upheaval of the late 1960s, something was brewing.<\/p>\n
In the midst of this bubbling crucible of unrest, Muddy Waters headlined the Sunday blues stage, and his set was recorded for later release on Chess Records. Many call it the first live blues recording. Some call it groundbreaking. Whatever it is, Waters \u2013 who was fresh off an eleven-year string as a commercial success and a mentor for dozens of blues greats \u2013 broke out his electric slide guitar and made history.<\/p>\n
He kicks things off with Willie Dixon\u2019s \u201cI Got My Brand On You,\u201d and from the first twisted whine of the slide guitar he owns the stage. While this may not be Waters\u2019 greatest backing band, it does include Chicago blues piano legend Otis Spann and guitarist Pat Hare, whose distorted blues sound was a large influence on early heavy metal. Needless to say, the set has bite; it stays tight and clean. Classics like \u201cI\u2019m Your Hoochie Coochie Man\u201d and the rollicking \u201cI\u2019ve Got My Mojo Workin\u2019\u201d make this a blues classic not to be missed.<\/p>\n
On the cover of the album, Waters is pictured with an acoustic guitar; when they took the photo, his Fender electric guitar wasn\u2019t available so he borrowed a guitar from John Lee Hooker. But don\u2019t be fooled by the cover; this is all about the interplay between Waters\u2019 voice and his wailing, crying electric slide, and it\u2019s a treat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":34174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10574],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-46005","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-muddy-waters","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46005"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46005"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}