Psychedelic Skeletons in the Closet–Muddy Waters
Psychedelic Skeletons in the Closet–Muddy Waters
Everybody who made a record before 1967 had a bad psychedelic moment. This month we unearth Muddy Waters’ cloudiest judgement– when he allowed Chess Records to refashion him into “Electric Mud,” a guy who dresses in robes and piles his hair higher than Marge Simpson. Incidentally, Chess released this on its “Cadet Concept” label, so it could be deleted without disturbing the Chess cataloging sequence.
Suspect Record: Electric Mud by Muddy Waters
Release Date In Relation to Sgt. Pepper LP: One Summer o’ Love later.
What do you get when you cross Maharishi Mahesh Yogi with Pepe Le Pieu?! Electric Mud! That's spelled M-U-D. Mud!
Suspicious Psychedelic Instrumentation:
You know you’re in trouble when “I’m a Man” starts out with a harp-the kind canonized saints play! One of Waters’ henchmen, if not the M-A-N himself, sounds like he’s got a pants cuff caught in a wah wah pedal and is furiously struggling to get free. And then there’s the flutes. “Hippies like those,” you can imagine Marshall Chess telling Muddy, I mean, Electric Mud.
Bad Psychedelia Enabler:
The British Blues Boom ignited by Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Ten Years After and Fleetwood Mac make this freaky side trip a logical step for Waters. So why does everything sound like Steppenwolf at the wrong end of an echo chamber?
What’s It Sound Like?
After the Stones recorded countless Waters copyrights, Muddy returns the favor by covering “Let’s Spend The Night Together” and adds insight to his frame of mind when he agreed to this project: “I’m going red and my toe’s getting tied/I rub my head and my mouth’s getting dry- I’m so high! And I’m tired!”
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