This is a compilation album that isn't, a live album that isn't (at least in a couple of spots), and a
Muddy Waters
album that isn't, if one counts the appearances by four other artists on it. But for all things it isn't, it is also just happens to be one of the greatest and certainly most underrated live blues album of all time, unbelievably crude, raw, and as real as it gets. Originally issued on
Chess
'
Argo
label during the height of the folk music blues revival (hence the goofy title), this was a record that was aimed at a white market who responded in kind. But anybody purchasing it thinking they were getting some nice acoustic coffeehouse blues were in for the reality-check shock of their lives. Recorded on July 26, 1963 at a
WPOA
live radio broadcast emceed by local Chicago disc jockey
Big Bill Hill
emanating from the
Copacabana Club
(hence when this was reissued in 1967, it was retitled
Blues From Big Bill's Copacabana
), this features
Buddy Guy's
band as the backup band for everybody, augmented by
Muddy's
right hand man, pianist
Otis Spann
. Although
Big Bill
announces the presence of
Little Walter
and
Sonny Boy Williamson
on the album's intro, they're no-shows; the studio version of
Williamson's
"Bring It On Home"
appears here with dubbed on applause (along with the studio version of
Guy's
"Worried Blues,"
one of the two bits of audio chicanery here). Everything else is just amazingly raw, crude and blistering, with some of the most electrifying
Buddy Guy
guitar ever committed to tape, droning saxes, thundering drums, and
anchoring everything with consummate elegance, as nobody's bothered to check their tuning in the last half dozen drinks or more. The combination of performances of
Guy
,
Howlin' Wolf
Willie Dixon
, and
Sonny Boy
in tandem with
Waters
would certainly checklist this one into 'various artists' category, but with half of the 10 tracks here being fronted by
, it's clearly
show all the way. His performances of
"I Got My Mojo Working,"
"She's 19 Years Old,"
"Clouds In My Heart,"
"Sitting And Thinking,"
and the vocal trio effort with
Dixon
on the show opening "Wee Wee Baby" are nothing less than exemplary. No matter how you slice it or end up filing it, one would be very hard pressed indeed to find a live blues album that captures the spirit and a moment in time the way this one does. Unavailable on compact disc as of press time, but worth tracking down in its vinyl incarnations at any cost. ~ Cub Koda