Hoochie Coochie Man: Complete Chess Masters, Vol. 2: 1952-1958

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Customer reviews

review by: Always looking sharp and cutting through the crap. date: 2008-11-06 rating:
Get it quick while it is still available.
Hip-O-Select are a specialist division of Universal Music. Unlike its parent company, it sells directly to customers from its website, but increasingly companies like Amazon have sold Hip-O-Select's releases from their own website. This has been good news for UK customers in particular, as we are one of the few countries that cannot order directly from the Hip-O-Select website. If you are interested in Soul/RB and Blues from the 50's and 60's the company's cd's are going to be right up your street. The releases are usually rare and out of print LP's or double cd's full of unissued masters. The company has released a number of Lost and Found cd's for Motown (Four Tops, Supremes and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas) and also the comprehensive Complete Motown Singles Box sets. The liner notes, although maybe not up to the standard of Ace/Kent records, (but then again, no one else on the market gets even close) effectively paint a background to the music on the cd's and the sound quality is top notch. br / br /The only problem with Hip-O-Select is that they always release their cd's as limited editions. Several cd's of the past now reach ridiculous prices on ebay- the worst offender being the David Ruffin Unreleased album which was only released in 2004. This particular cd is limited to 5000 copies, and although there are quite a few outlets selling the cd at the moment, they won't stay around forever. br / br /Moving on the actual music, well it's Muddy Waters. The mannish boy in his prime, with his brutal delivery and signature sound. Playing with some of Chicago's best musicians, including artists who are still remembered for their own recording careers like Little Walter and Junior Wells. Even the legendary Willie Dixon turns up on bass on a number of these songs. And these songs still stand proudly in the Pantheon of Blues, Rock 'n' Roll and Soul music. Songs like Hoochie Coochie Man and Mannish Boy would be familiar to most casual music fans. There are also songs that will be familiar because of more well known cover versions; I Just Want to Make Love to You (Etta James, from THAT Coca Cola Commercial years back) Got My Mojo Working (the background to the song is very complicated, and even Waters himself made a more well known version) Baby Please Don't Go, which was transformed into a completely different sounding song by Them. Even Howlin' Wolf's signature song Smokestack Lightnin' appears here, with the liner notes claiming that this recording precedes Wolf's own recording of his own song by two years (these artists spent as much time touring as in the studio, many tracks were tested and refined on the road first.) There are songs like Rock Me (Jeff Beck Group), Evil (The Faces) which you might have come across before and his own hits like Close To you, I'm ready and Trouble No More. Maybe 51 tracks here are too much for the casual listener as it does get a bit samey, but for the current price you might as well get the complete recordings for this time period. This is the music that inspired the British invasion, and most of the British bands covered these songs at some point in their careers. Although they don't appear on these cd's. his 1950 song Rollin' Stone was used as the name of a quite famous band, and his 1962 track You need Love was first covered by the Small Faces, and then modified by Led Zeppelin into their hit Whole Lotta Love. During the 60's many of his songs were released in Britain for the first time. Songs like Hoochie Coochie man became staples of the Mod movement, adding another dimension to the mod club scene. It is a testament to the artist and the tracks here that his 50's recordings didn't sound dated when played alongside the Motown, Stax and Chess's own releases during this time period. Like James Brown (whose mid-60's records were recieved much less favourably than his early recordings) his 50's sound was to some extent ahead of its time. Admittedly they lack the production of some of the slicker 60's records and many are mid-tempo blues songs. But there is an undefinable quality about the delivery of this music- they just sound like they have come straight out of a Chicago night club. There is so much going on in these recordings that they still have a unique sound, which is why the mod's were so fond of Mr Waters. Highly recommended for blues fans, mods and anyone who is interested in music from this time peroid.


review by: jezzc123 date: 2007-08-30 rating:
Muddy Jumps One!
As said in the CD title, this limited edition 2CD set features Muddy Waters recordings for Chess during the years 1952-1958 when he was the `King Of Chicago Blues'. br / br /This 2CD set comes in a posh `booklet' style CD case (unlike any other that I've seen before)! and is the next volume in Muddy's prolific spell at Chess Records (The first being a 2CD set: Rollin' Stone 1947-1952). br / br /This is a great CD set for Muddy Waters fans and especially fans of `Electric blues' as it features all of the music from his `Electric' years at Chess rather than the slow, acoustic country blues that he recorded in the years leading up to 1952 as featured on the Rollin' Stone set. br /

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