20th Century Masters: The Best Of Muddy Waters (Millennium Collection) [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]

Muddy Waters, 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection (Series)

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 23, 1999)
• Original Release Date: March 23, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Mca
• ASIN: B00000I8LP
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #103,528 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Muddy Waters's entry in MCA's 20th Century Masters is as good as the budget-minded series gets. True, it's a little lacking in the amount of material--just 12 tracks over the span of 32 minutes--but every one of these songs is a stone blues classic. The set is well focused, too, sticking with some of the great singles Waters recorded for the Chess label between 1951 and 1956--"I Just Want to Make Love to You," "Mannish Boy," "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man," "Got My Mojo Working," and other tunes that are the very cornerstone of Chicago blues. There are other worthy Waters collections covering roughly the same period, notably His Best 1947-55, but this set is fine, too. It's short, yes, but very, very sweet. --Daniel Durchholz

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars That's It?, April 18, 1999

By A Customer

Pales in comparison to the recent "His Best" series. Skimpy content.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent down home Delta Blues, February 22, 2002

By	doug (North Bay, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This is an excellent sampler of this artists work. What is wrong with these previous reviewers rating the cd one and two stars because of lack of content? This isn't an anthology or a boxed set, it is a way to taste the wares to see if you want to spend bigger bucks for a more detailed collection. Don't shy away from this cd the remastering is amazing considering some of this stuff was recorded in the fifties. Excellent value.

4.0 out of 5 stars Muddy's Best Goes Way Beyond 11 Tracks, August 11, 2007

By	A Customer - See all my reviews

I see that many of the entries in the vast 20th Century Millenium Collection series which first hit the market about a decade ago continue to be available. What I can't understand is, why would anyone pay the price being asked for 11 or 12 tracks when, for just a bit more, you can get upwards of 20 to 30 tracks for most of the artists covered in the series? And on CDs with extensive liner notes.

As far as this one goes it isn't bad as the sound quality is excellent and with the insert you get a discography of the contents [but no chart details], two pages of background notes by Joseph F. Laredo, and a couple of nice shots of Muddy, including one from his younger days.

But in terms of his best there's almost as much omitted as there is included. Also, two tracks [8 and 11] were the A- and B sides of the failed 1957 Chess single 1652, and with track 1 there seems to be a mistake in the title. According to my collection, Chess 1571 should be titled Just Make Love To Me [a # 4 R&B hit in July 1954], not I Just Want To Make Love To You. The remaining eight are correctly shown and all were among his best in terms of being R&B hits as each, with the exception of Sugar Sweet, made the Top 10. And that one, the B-side of Trouble No More [# 7 in February 1956], just missed, reaching # 11.

But rather than the two non-hit sides could they not have included his first from 1948, I Feel Like Going Home, which reached # 11 on Aristocrat 1305 before it became Chess, and then his first for Chess, Louisiana Blues, which made it to # 10 in January 1951? And, as they did with the Roger Miller volume in the series, why not go to an even dozen tracks and include one of the other many hits omitted? Take your pick from among: Still A Fool [# 9 in December 1951]; She Moves Me [# 10 in February 1952]; Mad Love [# 6 in December 1953]; Don't Go No Farther [# 9 in September 1956], and his last hit, Close To You [# 9 in December 1958].

Even his now classic Rolling Stone, his first release on Chess in 1950, would have been better even though it did not chart (a mystery in itself). Shop around. Don't be drawn in by the seemingly cheap price of each of the compilations offered. There is a lot available for around $14.00 to $18.00 each and if you are in doubt about whether the set you're looking at offers original cuts, check to see who is the distributor. If it's someone like Ace, Jasmine or Acrobat of the U.K., or Bear Family of Germany, you can be certain that they are originals and well-produced with hefty liner notes and discographies.