#0029: Muddy Waters - At Newport [***]

Like the jazz albums recorded in this way, it is the ambient crowd noise that really makes it gripping listening.  If you compare the audience sound with any live album from the 70s and beyond, there is a certain sheen to it as if the producer has enhanced the noise to give the impression the people are going more crazy for it.  Granted, there's a lot more screaming and cheering in those later recordings but for some reason it feels to me as if these gig-goers pre-Beatles were having a better time.  Perhaps it's because this was a time when the hood of repression was being drawn back off the face of society.  What we're hearing isn't just the sound of people enthusiastic about the artist performing but of people being released from the multifarious torments of their daily lives by the Blues: this simple confined construct that somehow offers endless possibilities.

I don't go to blues nights and I'm not a particular fan of the style in general.  Perhaps that's because I haven't listened to very much that's good.  When something has a simple structure it becomes very easy to do badly. That said, I do ask a for a bit more from my progressions than the standard I, IV and V the vast majority of blues tunes are built on.  But my main objection to blues bands is the mix.  People don't leave enough space and you can never hear the fucking words cuz the guitar, bass and drums are all giving it way too large.

Muddy Waters, on the other hand, shows us here how it is to be done.  Clear vocals, plenty of space and a variety of rhythms are employed, which when set against the background of a bunch of people clearly having a wild time makes for a fun and interesting listen.  Not my bag, but a nice place to visit.