The Real Folk Blues

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Using a name like <i>The Real Folk Blues</i> for a Muddy Waters album is a little like calling an apple a round, crunchy banana: They’re both fruit—but getting one when you were thinking about the other would throw you for a loop. By the time this compilation of early singles was released in 1965, Waters was known as more than just an electric player. His music had also marked a path away from the starkness of early country blues, and toward something more cosmopolitan and extroverted. It was a shift that reflected the Great Migration of Black Americans from the Deep South toward northern cities—and a shift that helped solidify blues as the bridge to what the world by then knew as rock ’n’ roll. And, boy—the music on <i>The Real Folk Blues</i> makes you want to <i>live</i> in all the rude, earthy ways the gift of life allows. In Waters’ world, you become cursed at childhood (“Gypsy Woman”); watch your house burn (“You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had”); and go with a girl because she carries a knife (“Walkin’ Thru the Park”). And you love <i>every</i> minute of it. Therein lies the paradox of good blues: It talks a lot about feeling bad, but it tends to make you feel anything but.

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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