0387. Muddy Waters
Hard Again

Last time we heard Muddy Waters, he was At Newport 1960. Seventeen years (well, just under a year and a half here on the list) and a label change later he's back with a heavy, heavy album called Hard Again and I almost don't wanna touch it with a ten foot pole after seeing his leer on the album cover.

The worst part of having to rely on second-hand music for writing this list is sometimes the albums are damaged, like this one where the track Blues Had A Baby And They Named It Rock And Roll, Pt 2. was unlistenable (had to look it up on other channels). Anyway, this was a kind of comeback for the seventy-one year old, who'd had a waning career for the las decade. After playing The Band's farewell concert he got the chance to do this - his return to the Chicago sound.

An what a return it is.

Mannish Boy could probably be blamed for every attempt in a movie to give the protagonist some more attitude by infusing a hard blues riff when he (almost always a he, isn't it?) goes from zero to hero. With its rough, and very basic, riff repeating for about five minutes of getting your badass on, this re-recording of the song (first time was in 1955, a version half the length o this and inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame) opens the album and leaves a lingering feeling of being indestructible.
The rest of the songs are maybe not just as kick-ass, but they're damn good and, with the album being recorded in just two days, sound as if recorded live in a juke joint. This is the soundtrack to a good day.