Muddy Waters Live (At Mr. Kelly's)

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2004-06-18 rating:
Good live Muddy from Chess
Chess records only recorded Howlin' Wolf live a single time, and late in his career at that, and the label's other main attractions never got a live album. But Muddy Waters was luckier, and this 1971 album was the third full-length concert recording of his career. br / br /Cut in the summer of 1971 at Mr. Kelly's, a Chicago club on the Near North Side, "Muddy Waters Live (at Mr. Kelly's)" finds Muddy in fine form, working with his excellent early-70s band which included Joe "Pinetop" Perkins (piano), drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, bassist Calvin "Fuzz" Jones, and guitarists Samuel Lawhorn and James "Pee Wee" Madison. James Cotton blows the harp on three songs, but on the remaining nine songs it is 21-year-old Paul Oscher playing the excellent, muscular harmonica parts. br / br /The album opens with a slightly lackluster "Country Boy"-knockoff called "What Is That She Got" and a rendition of Jimmy Reed's "You Don't Have To Go" (which doesn't sound _quite_ right without Reed's drawling vocals). But then it gets better: the slow blues "Strange Woman", a swinging "Blow Wind Blow" with some great playing by Pinetop Perkins and Paul Oscher, the excellent instrumental "Mudcat", and a gritty "She's Nineteen Years Old" are all among the highlights. And this version of "Stormy Monday Blues" is probably the best I'v heard by Muddy Waters. br / br /Still, this album doesn't quite match the power and boldness of some of Muddy's other live albums...the band is excellent, and the performance is confident and professional, but the track list is weaker than on most other live albums, and Muddy lacks a little bit of fire as well. Better versions of songs "Nine Below Zero", "Country Boy", and "Long Distance Call" can easily be found (check out albums like the 1966 "Authorized Bootleg", "Muddy Waters At Newport", "Mojo: The Live Collection", "Chicago 1979", "Muddy 'Missippi' Waters Live" and "The Lost Tapes"). br / br /Still, this is not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination, and it is certainly worth a listen. It is the only live Muddy album to feature Paul Oscher (who is a great harpist, even though he mostly plays the guitar these days), and these renditions of "Mudcat", "C.C. Woman", "Blow Wind Blow", T-Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday Blues", and John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom" deserve to be heard.

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review by: dennishickie date: 2003-11-12 rating:
The Reason Why...........
I bought this cd as I was lucky enough to see Muddy Waters twice as support to Eric Clapton in 1978 and he stole the show both times.This cd captures the brilliance of the man when he was alive.Favourites for me being "Mannish Boy" and "Kansas City" though there`s not a bad track on either cd 1 or cd 2. brMuddy Waters was a good age when this music was recorded but it`s played with passion,energy and honesty....something lacking in a lot of music today.


review by: sperman69 date: 2003-10-17 rating:
Da BLUES
Excellent, excellent! One of the kings of blues, live, kickstarting your emotions like a whip on your soul! Already the opening with the mythical "Mannish Boy", and then more and more breathtaking classics through the two discs, till the closure with "Got my mojo working"... a climax of pathos, a crescendo of chills like only Muddy Waters can give. Of course the live recording isn't as good as in studio, but here it even amplifies the emotions that the music already brings down onto the listener!brIf I didn't have already, I'd buy it right away!

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