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"...I Love The Life I Live...I
Live The Life I Love…"
Part 2 in Hip-O Select's
ongoing reissue series (for Parts 1 and 3, see list below) - "Hoochie
Coochie Man: The Complete Chess Masters Volume 2, 1952-1958" by MUDDY
WATERS was US released December 2004 as a 2CD set on Hip-O
Select/Geffen/Chess/Universal B0002758-02 and is non-numbered Limited Edition Book Set of 5000.
Disc 1 has 25 tracks at 72:37
minutes - Disc 2 has 26 tracks at 73:19 minutes.
In order to properly show
what's on offer - I've provided a track-by-track Discography with song
placements after each title - [9/1] is Track 9 on Disc 1 - [1/2] is Track 1 on
Disc 2 etc.
It breaks down as follows...
7"
SINGLES:
1. Chess 1526 (released 1952)
Standing Around Crying [1/1
*] b/w Gone To Main Street [2/1]
2. Chess 1537 (released 1952)
She's All Right [6/1] b/w Sad
Sad Day [8/1]
3. Chess 1542 (released 1953)
Who's Gonna Be Your Sweet Man
[24/2 Vol.1 *] b/w Turn Your Lamp Down Low (Baby Please Don't Go) [9/1]
4. Chess 1550 (released 1953)
Mad Love (I Want You To Love
Me) [13/1] b/w Blow Wind Blow [12/1]
5. Chess 1560 (released 1954)
(I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie
Man [15/1] b/w She's So Pretty [16/1]
6. Chess 1571 (released 1954)
I Just Want To Make Love To
You [17/1] b/w Oh Yeh (Oh Yeah) [18/1]
7. Chess 1579 (released 1954)
I'm Ready [19/1] b/w I Don't
Know Why [21/1]
8. Chess 1585 (released 1955)
Loving Man [11/1] b/w I'm A
Natural Born Lover [22/1]
9. Chess 1596 (released 1955)
I Want To Be Loved [1/2] b/w
My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble [2/2]
10. Chess 1602 (released
1955)
Manish Boy [3/2] b/w Young
Fashioned Ways [25/1]
11. Chess 1612 (released
1955)
Trouble No More [16/2] b/w
Sugar Sweet [5/2]
12. Chess 1620 (released
1956)
Forty Days And Forty Nights
[8/2] b/w All Aboard [9/2]
13. Chess 1630 (released
1956)
Don't Go No Farther [11/2]
b/w Diamonds At your Feet [12/2]
14. Chess 1644 (released
1956)
I Got To Love... [4/2] b/w
Just To Be With You [10/2]
15. Chess 1652 (released 1957)
Got My Mojo Working [16/2]
b/w Rock Me [14/2]
16. Chess 1667 (released
(1957)
Good News [17/2] b/w Come
Home Baby (I Wish You Would) [19/2]
17. Chess 1680 (released
1958)
I Love The Life I Live (I
Live The Life I Love) [13/2] b/w Evil [18/2]
18. Chess 1692 (released
1958)
I Won't Go On [21/2] b/w
She's Got It [22/2]
19. Chess 1704 (released
1958)
Close To You [25/2] b/w She's
Nineteen Years Old [24/2]
20. Chess 1724 (released
1959)
Ooh Wee [23/1] b/w Clouds In
My Heart [7/2]
21. Chess 1758 (released
1960)
Love Affair [13/1 *] b/w Look
What You've Done [15/2]
NOTES on 7"
SINGLES":
* Standing Around Crying is
miscredited in the booklet as Chess 1542 when it's the A-side of Chess 1526
* Who's Gonna Be Your Sweet
Man (Chess 1542) in on Volume 1 in this Series called "Rolling Stone: The
Golden Anniversary Collection" -
Track 24/Disc 2
* "Love Affair"
(Chess 1758) is on "You Shook Me - Volume 3" 2CD set - Track 13/Disc
1
ALBUMS:
1. "The Blues, Volume
3" (Various Artists)
Argo LP 4034 (1964)
Baby Please Don't Go
(Alternate) [10/1]
2. "More Real Folk
Blues"
Chess LP 1551 (released 1967)
My Life Is Ruined (Landlady)
[5/1]
She's All Right (Alternate)
[7/1]
3. "Rare And
Unissued"
(Compilation LP released 1984
in the USA on Chess CH-9180)
Born Lover [23/2]
Iodine In My Coffee [3/1]
Let Me Hang Around [20/2]
Smokestack Lightning [20/1]
4. "The Chess Box"
(Major retrospective 6LP
(CH6-80002) and 3CD Box Set (CHD3-80002) released October 1989)
Flood [4/1]
(I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie
Man (Alternate) [14/1]
5. "Hoochie Coochie Man:
The Complete Chess Masters Volume 2, 1952-1958"
Clouds In My Heart [7/2]
(Previously Unreleased on US album)
Come Home Baby (I Wish You
Would) [19/2] (Previously Unreleased on US album)
I Won't Go On [21/2]
(Previously Unreleased in the US)
Loving Man [11/1] (Previously
Unreleased on US album)
Ooh Wee [23/1] (Previously
Unreleased on US album)
She's All Right [6/1]
(Previously Unreleased on US Album)
She's Got it [22/1]
(Previously Unreleased on US album)
She's Got It (Alternate Mix)
[26/2] (Previously Unreleased)
This Pain [24/1] (Previously
Unreleased in the US)
Turn Your Lamp Down Low (Baby
Please Don't Go [9/1] (Previously Unreleased on US album)
As packaging goes - Hip-O
Select's Volume 2 is a lovely thing. The hardback book cover is the width of an
A4 page and about half that in length. As you can see from the photo - it has a
woody textured feel with the man's real name embossed onto the spine in large
letters - McKINLEY MORGANFIELD. Inside is a 42-page booklet with further card
pouches to hold CD 1 and 2 on the front and back covers. Pages 3 to 11 have
liner notes by noted expert and fan MARY KATHERINE ALDIN - pages 12 to 31 are
all photos of the great man (gorgeous shots in both colour and black/white).
Pages 32 and 33 picture the 7" singles of "Turn Your Lamp Down
Low" (Chess 1542) and "Manish Boy" (Chess 1602) and the
remaining pages are recording/reissue credits with the words 'Limited Edition'
embossed on the rear cover (non-numbered). The set's been compiled by great
names like ANDY McKAIE and PAT LAWRENCE and remastered/restored by one of
Universal's top engineers - ERICK LABSON - a man with well over 1,100 tape
transfer credits to his name (including most of the huge Chess Records
catalogue). It sounds wonderful - clean, full of presence and not too trebled
for the sake of it.
As you can see from the
Discography provided above - musically you get a whopping 21 non-album singles
and their equally cool B-sides - and the many straggler tracks issued since the
Sixties on albums and CD retrospectives down through the decades. The
eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that whilst 9 of the overall 51 tracks are
technically 'Previously unreleased on album in the USA' - there is only one
genuine previously unreleased cut - an Alternate Mix of "She's Got
It" on Disc 2.
The writing credits are split
between Muddy and Chess's resident songwriting genius Willie Dixon and Muddy's
stellar band reads like a who's who of Blues luminaries - Little Walter on
incendiary Harmonica (with Walter Horton, Junior Wells and James Cotton), Otis
Spann his long-time piano-playing sidekick, Jimmy Rogers and Pat Hare provided
tasty Guitars, the legendary Willie Dixon on Upright Bass, Elgin Evans and Fred
Below on Drums and many more...
Even now in 2014 - listening
to these tracks is a hair-raising audio experience - the sheer power of the man
hits you over and over again - and that voice backed up by a band that breathed
the Blues with every large lung intake. "I Just Want To Make Love To
You", "I'm Ready", "Manish Boy", "Got My Mojo
Working" - it's all so ludicrously good and of course woven into our
consciousness and Rock culture in ways that would take books to explain. I
sequenced the first 10 singles on my Mac - A's and B's - and what a playlist it
is. Fabulous music and the kind of compilation that makes you want for more
(I've also reviewed Volume 3 in this series - "You Shook Me").
Will we ever see the likes of
Muddy Waters or his incredible Chess players ever again - it's unlikely. But
"Hoochie Coochie Man..." is a beautiful and satisfying way to
celebrate such an amazing musical legacy and honour true giants of the genre.
HIP-O
SELECT (and MCA) CD Compilations for MUDDY WATERS in this Series:
1. "Rollin' Stone: The
Golden Anniversary Collection"
(27 June 2000 USA 2CD set on MCA/Chess 088 112 301-2 (Barcode 008811230128)
Volume 1 - covers 1947 to
1952 on the Aristocrat and Chess labels
2. "Hoochie Coochie Man
- The Complete Chess Masters Volume 2, 1952-1958"
(December 2004 USA 2CD BOOK
PACK on Hip-O Select/Chess B0002758-02)
3. "You Shook Me - The
Chess Masters Vol. 3, 1958-1963"
(December 2012 USA 2CD set on
Hip-O Select/Geffen/Chess/Universal B10017581-02)
