Released 4/27/09
Muddy Waters position in modern music is of great importance. By taking the pre-war Mississippi Delta sounds of artists like Son House and Robert Johnson and amplifying them in Chicago he invented a new strand of Blues that was to become influential on a new generation of artists in the 1960¡¯s who would use Mississippi Delta Blues as the foundation for their own music. The Rolling Stones, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and many others would have sounded very different if it wasn¡¯t for Muddy Waters. This release explores Muddy¡¯s position as link between the old Country Blues of the early decades of the last century and the Rock music of the 1960¡¯s and 1970¡¯s that was itself so influential on modern music. The 60 tracks on this set comprise of songs that Muddy covered, Muddy¡¯s versions of these songs and some of Muddy¡¯s originals that would in turn become so important to later artists resulting in a completely rounded look at his work. This set also includes the DVD, ''Talkin' Muddy'', that contains interviews with musicians, musicologists. Blues scholars and Delta historians discussing his life and work.