Muddy Waters - Folk Singer (MFSL) UDCD593

Not my rip. All the thanks and respect to the original ripper and uploader. All files in wav uncompressed format.

mofie108


Muddy Waters - Folk Singer - MFSL
CD FULL RANGE ONLY | Covers | 410 MB (223 MB RAR)|
EXACT AUDIO COPY IMAGE (WAV+CUE)

MOBILE FIDELITY SOUND LAB | AUDIOPHILE CD

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Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL, or "MoFi") is a company that produces audiophile releases of classic CDs and vinyl records.

Many commercial CDs undergo dynamic range compression in order to sound "louder" when played on radio or low-end systems. Some consider this detrimental to the sound quality when reproduced on high-quality equipment. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab releases are highly desirable due to their attention to detail concerning the audio mastering process. Some of the techniques used are half-speed mastering and pressing gold-plated CDs. MFSL also releases record albums meant to be played at 45 RPM instead of the standard 33? RPM, for better sound quality. These albums must be released on two or three discs, as less music can be held at increased speed.

MFSL only acquires the license to reproduce releases for a specific time period, and because of the limited quantities produced, they are highly sought after.



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Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab's ongoing quest is to deliver the foremost sounding audio entertainment software that technological innovation can provide. From our first UHQR™ vinyl LP to our latest Ultradisc UHR™ SACD, we have been and will remain a steadfast innovator in the audiophile frontier. We further believe that technological development serves best when accompanied by a profound awareness and appreciation for the elusive magic and mystery that comprises music itself. Our greatest hope is that our products will serve as conduits for ears ands souls to experience premium, pure, natural sound reproduction of diverse, pre-eminent original master recordings across the entire musical spectrum


The artist


A postwar Chicago blues scene without the magnificent contributions of Muddy Waters is absolutely unimaginable. From the late '40s on, he eloquently defined the city's aggressive, swaggering, Delta-rooted sound with his declamatory vocals and piercing slide-guitar attack. When he passed away in 1983, the Windy City would never quite recover.

Like many of his contemporaries on the Chicago circuit, Waters was a product of the fertile Mississippi Delta. Born McKinley Morganfield in Rolling Fork, he grew up in nearby Clarksdale on Stovall's Plantation. His idol was the powerful Son House, a Delta patriarch whose flailing slide work and intimidating intensity Waters would emulate in his own fashion.

Musicologist Alan Lomax traveled through Stovall's in August of 1941 under the auspices of the Library of Congress, in search of new talent for purposes of field recording. With the discovery of Morganfield, Lomax must have immediately known he'd stumbled across someone very special.

Setting up his portable recording rig in the Delta bluesman's house, Lomax captured for Library of Congress posterity Waters' mesmerizing rendition of "I Be's Troubled," which became his first big seller when he re-cut it a few years later for the Chess brothers' Aristocrat logo as "I Can't Be Satisfied." Lomax returned the next summer to record his bottleneck-wielding find more extensively, also cutting sides by the Son Simms Four (a string band that Waters belonged to).

Waters was renowned for his blues-playing prowess across the Delta, but that was about it until 1943, when he left for the bright lights of Chicago. A tiff with "the bossman" apparently also had a little something to do with his relocation plans. By the mid-'40s, Waters' slide skills were becoming a recognized entity on Chicago's South side, where he shared a stage or two with pianists Sunnyland Slim and Eddie Boyd, and guitarist Blue Smitty. Producer Lester Melrose, who still had the local recording scene pretty much sewn up in 1946, accompanied Waters into the studio to wax a date for Columbia, but the urban nature of the sides didn't electrify anyone in the label's hierarchy and remained unissued for decades.

Sunnyland Slim played a large role in launching the career of Muddy Waters. The pianist invited him to provide accompaniment for his 1947 Aristocrat session that would produce "Johnson Machine Gun." One obstacle remained beforehand: Waters had a day gig delivering Venetian blinds. But he wasn't about to let such a golden opportunity slip through his talented fingers. He informed his boss that a fictitious cousin had been murdered in an alley, so he needed a little time off to take care of business.

When Sunnyland had finished that auspicious day, Waters sang a pair of numbers, "Little Anna Mae" and "Gypsy Woman," that would become his own Aristocrat debut 78. They were rawer than the Columbia stuff, but not as inexorably down-home as "I Can't Be Satisfied" and its flip, "I Feel Like Going Home" (the latter was his first national R&B hit in 1948). With Big Crawford slapping the bass behind Waters' gruff growl and slashing slide, "I Can't Be Satisfied" was such a local sensation that even Muddy Waters himself had a hard time buying a copy down on Maxwell Street.

He assembled a band that was so tight and vicious on-stage that they were informally known as "the Headhunters"; they'd come into a bar where a band was playing, ask to sit in, and then "cut the heads" of their competitors with their superior musicianship. Little Walter, of course, would single-handily revolutionize the role of the harmonica within the Chicago blues hierarchy; Jimmy Rogers was an utterly dependable second guitarist; and Baby Face Leroy Foster could play both drums and guitar. On top of their instrumental skills, all four men could sing powerfully.

1951 found Waters climbing the R&B charts no less than four times, beginning with "Louisiana Blues," and continuing through "Long Distance Call," "Honey Bee," and "Still a Fool." Although it didn't chart, his 1950 classic "Rollin' Stone" provided a certain young British combo with a rather enduring name. Leonard Chess himself provided the incredibly unsubtle bass-drum bombs on Waters' 1952 smash "She Moves Me."