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The quintessential Chicago bluesman, Muddy Waters recorded his most beloved sides for the legendary Chess label. Those songs have been anthologized on innumerable compilations, and some of the full-length albums Waters made during this period are today viewed as essential. There's little that could equal the unabashed power and authoritativeness of classic Waters recordings such as "Got My Mojo Workin'," "She's Nineteen Years Old" and "Mannish Boy," and few blues albums have weathered the test of time as well as, say, 1969's Fathers & Sons.

Muddy Waters' Muddy, Brass And The Blues

So it's sort of refreshing – if a little odd – to find out that a British label has reissued two of the bluesman's lesser-known Chess discs in a two-fer package. This will likely be the first time newer Waters fans have heard most of these tracks, and they're definitely worth hearing, even if they never got the glory of his more timeless material. Both albums have some tremendous moments on them, and they help show the progression Waters was following during a time in his career when he seemed to be exploring one style after another.

Muddy, Brass And The Blues, from 1967, was the last album he recorded before the polarizing Electric Mud. It couldn't be more different from that psychedelic-flavored set; where Electric Mud tried to inject the spirit of Jimi Hendrix into Waters' guitar playing, Muddy, Brass And The Blues mostly dispensed with his guitar altogether, in favor of an uptown sound created by overdubbing a horn section after the basic tracks were completed.

The focus here is on Muddy's vocals, which bear a distinct R&B/soul tint as opposed to the gritty, pure blues of his previous work.

Trouble No More

Only on a couple of tracks ("Betty and Dupree," the mid-tempo shuffle "Take My Advice") do the horn parts overwhelm the band's playing; for the most part, the unnamed brass players tastefully accompany Sammy Lawhorn and James "Pee Wee" Madison's guitars, Otis Spann's piano, and James Cotton's harmonica. The rhythm section (Calvin "Fuzz" Jones on bass and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith on drums) keep things tight.

Waters' take on the standard "Corine, Corina" proves the blues can be catchy and accessible; the soaring melody lingering in the listener's ear long after the song is over. Spann's glistening piano and Cotton's harp are essential to the appeal of "Piney Brown Blues." A straightforward take on "Trouble In Mind" uses the brass to gently complement the arrangement, while the mournful "Black Night" seems to lose the horns altogether. "Trouble" is a reworked version of "Trouble No More," which Waters had had a hit with in 1956 and which was derived from Sleepy John Estes' country blues "Someday Baby Blues."

Muddy Waters' Can't Get No Grindin'

Can't Get No Grindin', from 1973, is an entirely different animal. Waters' penultimate album for Chess, it was something of a return to form for the Chicago bluesman, with a rawer, slide-guitar-fueled sound. Several tracks were updates of previous hits; "Mother's Bad Luck Child" remade his 1948 single "Gypsy Woman," with a slowed-down tempo and a healthy dose of Waters' pinprick-sharp guitar. "Can't Get No Grindin' (What's the Matter with the Mill)" took Memphis Minnie's song and turned it into something funkier, thanks to Pinetop Perkins' bouncy organ and the call-and-response vocals.

New songs such as "Love Weapon" and "Garbage Man" had the band as a whole performing as tightly as ever, with Waters' slide and Cotton's harmonica interweaving nicely. And three mostly instrumental tracks - Waters' own upbeat "Funky Butt," the somnambulant Erskine Hawkins hit "After Hours" and the boisterous "Muddy Waters' Shuffle," in which he namechecks B.B. King - add to the album's diversity.

Ken's Bottom Line

For fans who felt Waters had gotten off track with the experimentalism of some of his late-period Chess releases, the back-to-basics Can't Get No Grindin' probably came as a relief. Here, combined with Muddy, Brass And The Blues, the effect is strange but intriguing. Neither album is the place for a newcomer to begin discovering Waters' rich catalog, but both offer enough quality material that serious fans need to hear – provided they don't already own the original, separate CDs, originally issued in 1990. (BGO Records, released June 14, 2011)

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