MUDDY 'MISSISSIPPI' LIVE

Personnel: Muddy Waters (vocals, guitar, slide guitar); Johnny Winter, Bob Margolin, Luther "Guitar Jr." Johnson (guitar); Jerry Portnoy, James Cotton (harmonica); Pine Top Perkins (piano); Calvin Jones, Charles Calmese (bass); Willie "Big Eyes" Smith (drums). Includes liner notes by Robert Gordon and Bob Margolin. Muddy Waters was sharp enough to realize he was onto a good thing after Johnny Winter helped him get back to his roots on 1977's HARD AGAIN. He continued working with Winter in the same no-nonsense vein through the rest of the decade. The fruit of their collaboration can be heard in a live setting on this 1979 release, which takes HARD AGAIN's brand of revitalized Muddy to the stage. Backed by his regular band plus Winter, Muddy invests these songs with so much emotion you'd swear it was the first time he'd sung "Mannish Boy" instead of the ten-thousandth. Willie "Big Eyes" Smith's simple, insistent drums, and the guitars of Winter, Bob Margolin and Luther Johnson move together with the single-minded precision of a power drill, with Muddy playing the part of the husky-voiced drill bit. Amazingly, Muddy's power is undiminished from his '50s salad days. When he closes with a newer number about "going down to Florida," there's no need to worry about early retirement. He sounds ready to keep going as long as there's life in him. And that's exactly what he did.