By 1967, Muddy Waters’ career was in dire need of cardiac resuscitation. And by that I mean a couple of good jolts from a pair of electric defibrillation paddles, because it was flatlining. “The Father of Modern Chicago Blues” hadn’t had a hit since 1956’s “I’m Ready,” this despite a 1958 tour of England that electrified audiences and played an instrumental role in the British blues revival. Poor Muddy; while black audiences ignored him (or so he claimed), white musicians like Eric Clapton were copping his shtick and making hay. At times it must have seemed to Waters that the only person not getting rich off Muddy Waters was Muddy Waters.
Then young Marshall Chess, scion of Phil Chess, founder of Water’s label Chess Records, had a Eureka moment. The psychedelic sound was all the rage, so why not dose the waters of Muddy’s blues with some far-out acid rock? And it just so happened Marshall had some spare long hairs around, in the form of Rotary Connection, a second-rate psychedelic soul/jazz fusion band put together Monkees-style by Marshall and producer Charles Stepney. I have listened to their music, and it is god awful—dreamy in a way that makes you afraid to ever fall asleep again.
But Muddy was desperate enough to try anything—he’d have probably recorded an album with The Chipmunks had Chess suggested it—so if it was Blind Lemon Jefferson Airplane Chess wanted, that’s exactly what Chess would get. So into the studio went Waters, without so much as his trusty guitar, to make God knows what manner of hippie din with a hopped-up human be-in of hirsute honkies.
Or so goes the legend. In reality, the white core of Rotary Connection never played at the May 1968 sessions. Most of the members of Rotary Connection at the sessions weren’t hippies, honkies, or even real members of Rotary Connection at all. Only producer Stepney, who played keyboards at the sessions, was in any way, shape, or form a real member of Rotary Connection. The rest were ringers, seasoned jazz and blues sidemen affiliated with Chess and brought in to beef up Rotary Connection’s sound. For them, Rotary Connection had been just another 2-day studio gig.
They included drummer Morris Jennings, guitarist Phil Upchurch, bassist Louis Satterfield, and most importantly guitar savant Pete Cosey, who later played on a number of Miles Davis’ mid-seventies LPs and whose unique technique was far ahead of the times, encompassing as it did distortion, wah-wah, alternative tunings, and bizarrely restrung guitars. Also in the studio were non-Rotary Connection sessions guitarist Roland Faulkner and tenor saxophonist Gene Barge.
Did you follow all of that? I sure didn’t. Fortunately, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the finished LP, 1968’s Electric Mud (that’s electric as in kool-aid, not guitar) was so fucking weird nobody knew what to make of it. Waters himself later dismissed it as “dogshit.” According to Muddy it initially sold like hotcakes, that is until people listened to the damn thing, and returned it in droves.
Waters said Electric Mud wasn’t the blues, and he was partly right. It was something both far stranger and—to somebody like yours truly, who has never much cared for the blues, whether they be black, white, or albino—infinitely more intriguing. Electric Mud has its weak spots; Waters was unable to perform the music live, and there are times on the LP when it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t quite know how to sing it in the studio either. But overall it’s brilliant—the blooz like you’ve never heard them, all funked up and freaked out and nine times weirder than most of the psychedelic hoo-ha being hyped to the hairies in the Haight.
Take “I Just Want to Make Love To You,” a hoary old blues standard of the sort that I would leap out a 4th floor window onto a handkerchief held by firefighters to avoid. But these ain’t no normal blues. Not with Jennings playing some funked-up rock shit on the drums, Satterfield playing a sinuous and slinky bass line, and Stepney providing one cool drone on the electric organ. But best of all is Posey, whose wah-wah guitar wails, twists, and runs like a crackling downed power line the entire length of the song. His playing is a revelation and a miracle, and it’s easy enough, listening to Posey bend space and time, to miss the fact that Waters alone sounds out of place, his phrasing tenuous and awkward.
That said, on “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man,” which the band approaches in a much more traditional manner than the opening track, Waters sounds right at home. Jennings’ drumming is rock solid, and even Posey sounds like a bluesman, although not like any bluesman you’ve ever heard before; after the dissonant note-shredding that opens the song he lies low, only to occasionally rise from the mix to sow electric carnage. Unfortunately, the song is undone by one unabashedly cheesy arrangement for Barge’s tenor sax; it’s like something you might hear on a bad (well, they’re all bad actually) Blood, Sweat & Tears song. Only when Barge plays his horn in tandem with Posey during the latter’s extended solo does he fit in, and one can only wish they’d limited his participation to said solo.
Posey’s guitar’s opens the band’s cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Let’s Spend The Night Together,” a weird choice of tunes even for this strange LP. Waters is accompanied on the tune only by Posey’s guitar, Stepney’s organ, and some handclaps, and Posey’s guitar easily steals the show from Waters, whose phrasing is, er, unusual, especially on the choruses. This one is no success, but it’s worth the price of admission solely for Posey’s frenetic and magical performance. “She’s Aright” opens with a big-bottomed bass, then Jennings commences to molest the cymbals, and Posey lays down some crazy riffs, creating a lead-heavy, gut-bucket groove that is both funky and would do Black Sabbath proud. This is a sound Waters could deal with, and he’s at his best. As the song goes on Posey moves to the forefront, scribbling frenzied guitar doodles all over the song while Waters’ repeats, “She’s alright/She’s alright.” And so it goes until the band suddenly quiets, and Posey commences to play “My Girl” with the band joining in. Sound wrong? It works!
Muddy opens “Mannish Boy” to the accompaniment of some really weird sounds, then the rhythm section and Stepney’s piano produce a big pummeling beat that is as much funk as it is blues, yet still suits Muddy, who proudly declares himself to be a rolling stone and proves he can spell M.A.N. man while he’s at it, to a T. Meanwhile Posey shreds away at the song’s baseline as the song slowly picks up momentum and Waters belts it out like a Baptist preacher gone starkers. And I can’t believe I’m saying this about a blues song, but at 3:48 this one is really too short.
“Herbert Harper’s Free Press News” is a topical rock protest song co-written by Rotary Connection’s Sidney Barnes, and one odd choice of a tune for a blues album. It’s up-tempo, has a Santana-like feel, and is one groovy and funky number. And Posey’s all over it, running roughshod over the funky bass and the slinky percussion with one very oddly tuned guitar. It’s said Jimi Hendrix used to listen to this one for inspiration before shows, and I can believe it because Posey’s playing is so spazzed out, freaky, and over-the-top brilliant it’s downright unnatural. Meanwhile Waters negotiates the unfamiliar ground as well as he can, sounding stilted (and who wouldn’t) on lines like “the hippies sing a flower song” while sounding right at home as he barks out variations of, “Where you gonna run?/Where you gonna hide?” before delivering a series of big shouts.
“Tom Cat” has a jazzy and exotic vibe thanks to Barge’s saxophone, which plays a repetitive riff while Waters sings “Yeeeahhh, I’m a Tom Cat/And you is my kitten.” Unlike Barge’s previous appearance, on this one he makes the song rather than ruining it, wildly wailing away as the rhythm section once again kicks out a rhythm that’s just too one-nation-under-a-groove for the staid old blues. But it works; Waters is right in the pocket, singing about how he’s going to scratch your back with his claws, while Barge trills and screeches and Posey’s wah-wah provides an acid-washed backdrop. Album closer “The Same Thing” is showcases for Posey’s spazzed-out take on the blues. His guitar is front and center throughout, creating a psychedelic cacophony that runs the entire length of the song as Barge plays lots of sax blurt in the background, Jennings bashes away like that drummer for the Muppets, and Muddy does his level best to wrap his vocals around this caterwaul. This one almost reminds me of Captain Beefheart, it’s that weird.
Muddy Waters was ultimately granted the acclaim he deserved for his contributions to American music, garnering six Grammys and induction into both the Blues and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame. But he never quite forgave Chess for Electric Mud, saying, “If you change my sound, then you gonna change the whole man.” And he’s right, of course. Electric Mud isn’t one of his finer performances. But its fusion of blues, rock, and funk was revolutionary, and has influenced musicians from Public Enemy’s Chuck D. to Gorillaz.
Electric Mud is to the blues what Dylan’s electric set at Newport was to folk—a kick in the pants to purists and a wake-up call in one. Which was undoubtedly the last thing Muddy Waters, a purist himself, wanted. And Muddy lucked out, because the blues are still the blues, for better or worse, while Electric Mud remains little more than an oddity. Unlike Dylan, it changed nothing. Except that’s not true, because it sure changed me. Grew me a brand new set of ears. And isn’t that what great music is all about?
GRADED ON A CURVE:
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