Track Listing

1. I Can't Be Satisfied
2. I Feel Like Going Home
3. Train Fare Blues
4. Rollin' and Tumblin', Pt. 1
5. Rollin' Stone
6. Louisiana Blues
7. Long Distance Call
8. Honey Bee
9. She Moves Me
10. Still a Fool
11. Standing Around Crying
12. Baby Please Don't Go
13. I Want You to Love Me
14. (I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man
15. I Just Want to Make Love to You
16. I'm Ready
17. Young Fashioned Ways
18. Mannish Boy
19. Sugar Sweet
20. Trouble No More

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9609 in Music
• Released on: 1997-03-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .19 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
One of the best recordings in Chess Records' 50th Anniverary series is the first of two bookend Muddy Waters collections, His Best 1947-55. Documenting Waters's most creatively and commercially successful years at Aristocrat/Chess, this CD begins with his formative years and ends with Waters at his peak. So you're in for a lot of terrific bottleneck slide guitar work as well as electric Chicago blues. What's to criticize? Superb remasterings of "I Can't Be Satisfied," "Rollin' and Tumblin'," "I'm Ready," and "Mannish Boy" are simply beyond reproach. With simple bass accompaniment from Ernest "Big" Crawford, Waters's bottleneck tracks are spare, haunting and, quite frankly, perfect country blues. And listening to Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon, and Jimmy Rogers piece together (and perfect very quickly) the classic Chicago sound is pure blues epiphany. At the very least, this collection shows you why Waters's rollicking stop-time classics like "Mannish Boy" and "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man" have sparked endless imitations over the years--and why nobody has played them better since. --Ken Hohman

Customer Reviews

Did Someone Say Sexy?
Although I sometimes think Muddy's vocal stylings edge toward the artificial, what cannot be debated is that this CD contains just about the sexiest set of songs on one CD. It's impossible to pick one favorite. Some personal faves are: "Long Distance Call" (delirious), "Rollin' Stone" very serious, "She Moves Me" which I find funny. While most songs are about the same thing, they are diverse and always interesting musically. There's a swing throughout, and in the latter half with the help of Little Walter's harmonica, a very full sound results.

I agree with the reviewer who said "I'm willing to stick my neck out and assert that Muddy Waters was the greatest blues performer in history." I feel sorry for rockers who had to follow this man.

Excellent compilation
"Excellent compilation", eh? So why only four stars?
Well, let's make it 4 1/2, 'cause the track selection is really great. It brings together almost all the best of Muddy Waters' rough, muscular blues...or rather, the best of 1947-55, which is why this is "only" a four star-compilation: It's not a career spanning retrospective, and it doesn't quite cut it on its own.
But get this CD along with its companion volume, "His Best: 1956-1964", which also features 20 tracks, and you'll have a really fine career overview, second only to the three-disc "Chess Box" set (and perhaps the 50-track "The Anthology: 1947-1972").

This CD only has one significant flaw: A production error means than a sloppy alternate take of "Hoochie Coochie Man" is included instead of the master. Muddy's vocals are fantastic, but the music is less so, and Little Walter's harmonica playing is, well, awful.
But apart from that minor glitch this is just about as fine a compilation as you could wish for. It includes Muddy's first single, the slashing acoustic slide guitar blues "I Can't Be Satisfied", and tough, electric Chicago classics like "I'm Ready", "Trouble No More", "I Just Want To Make Love To You", and the one-chord powerhouse "Mannish Boy".
Just remember that this isn't the definitive word on Muddy Waters - he made superb songs after 1955 as well, and if you're going to get two Muddy-discs anyway you might as well go for the double-disc "Anthology 1947-1972" right away.

Foundation of rock and roll
This is the real deal. This is where rock and roll began, folks. Muddy Waters and his slide guitar, Willie Dixon's bass and Little Walter's harmonica. These twenty songs have had a profound influence on the music of the past fifty years. So many songs on here are classics, you have probably heard many of them even if you don't listen to the blues. They're that much a part of our culture. Muddy Waters will forever be remembered as not only one of the greatest bluesmen, but also one of the founders of rock and roll.