Search - Muddy Waters :: I'm Ready

****1/2 - great reissue of a tremendous album

Docendo Discimus | Vita scholae | 08/03/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The second of Muddy Waters' Blue Sky-albums, "I'm Ready" was originally issued in 1978, one year after Muddy had found renewed commercial and critical success with "Hard Again".



Johnny Winter produced and played on both albums, and if "I'm Ready" is slightly lesser than its magnificent predecessor, it is still a tremendous album. Remastered but (thankfully) not remixed, it finds Muddy Waters reinvigorated and in the company of Chicago blues greats Jimmy Rogers and Big Walter Horton, playing a supremely confident set of gritty, muscular electric blues. And the core of the Muddy Waters band is in place as well, of course, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith on drums and the great Joe "Pinetop" Perkins rolling the ivories.

Muddy's regular second guitarist Bob Margolin plays bass on this album, and he has contributed a wonderful, intimate six-page essay about the "I'm Ready" sessions. Margolin was instrumental in bringing guitarist Jimmy Rogers, a member of the very first Muddy Waters band in the late 40s, on board, and at his suggestion the great Walter Horton was hired to play the harmonica. Horton's exceptional playing is constantly smouldering beneath the gritty guitar parts of Waters, Rogers, and Johnny Winter.



The numerous highlights include the hard-hitting title track, the slow grind of "33 Years", the swaggering power of "Rock Me", and of course an excellent re-recording of the classic "Hoochie Coochie Man". And this 2004 reissue adds three terrific bonus tracks:

Jimmy Rogers' "That's Alright" sung in part by himself, a magnificent, driving rendition of Bob Margolin's "Lonely Man Blues", and a stinging "No Escape From the Blues", a song which would appear in a significantly different version on 1981's "King Bee".



There are no weak songs here, actually, and "I'm Ready" is definitely a must-have addition to any Muddy-fan's collection. If you already own the original CD issue you might not want to shell out again in order to get three bonus tracks and some better liner notes, but if you don't, you should get it right away.

And if you do own it, well...these are very good bonus tracks!"

Necessary

. | Chicago, IL USA | 01/01/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This, and the other Johnny Winter-produced Muddy Waters recordings from this era, are required listening."