Customer Reviews

Johnny Winter Sessions 1976-1981

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Muddy Waters enjoyed something of a renaissance in the late 70s and early 80s with his three Blue Sky-albums produced by guitarist Johnny Winter. And deservedly so; all three of them are absolutely wonderful. They feature the core of the Muddy Waters Blues Band as well as artists like Jimmy Rogers, Big Walter Horton, and Johnny Winter himself, and they belong in every Muddy-fan's collection.

And now there's a compilation as well. It draws from all three, obviously; the sessions produced about 35 songs, and you get just over half of them here. Great sound, great booklet. All fine and good. The only "problem", if you will, is that the approximately fifteen songs which didn't make it onto this compilation are frequently as good as many of the ones that did. And it's three CD's, I mean...come on! You can get two of them for the price of this one compilation.

To me, there is absolutely no reason to buy this. None whatsoever. The music is great, so I can't really bury it rating-wise, but seriously, this album is pointless. There is no new material here, obviously, the sound on the remastered 2004 issues of these albums is equally stellar, and the liner notes by Bob Margolin are, too.
Get the 2004 editions of "Hard Again", "I'm Ready", and "King Bee" instead of this odd, pointless compilation. I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't be better served. Oh, and get the live "Breakin' It Up & Breakin' It Down", too, by the way!

Don't let the title fool you into thinking this is a complete set of tracks from the great Johnny Winter sessions (it only contains a PARTIAL selection). I was also unable to play this disc in a computer drive or back it up to iTunes for iPod playback.