The Real Folk Blues

This compilation, released in 1966 to capitalize on an already waning folk music trend (Bob Dylan had gone electric the year before), gathers some of Muddy Waters’ earliest recordings and places them alongside louder, electric material from the 1950s. “Mannish Boy,” which opens the album, was a 1955 single that remains one of his best-known songs; the cavelike reverb and pay-phone distortion on everything (his voice, the guitar, the harmonica, the drums), not to mention the whooping and hollering crowd in the back, make it one of the most electric blues recordings of all time — there’s nothing “folk” about it. There are some more backwoods-ish tracks, though, like his version of Robert Johnson’s “Walkin’ Blues” and Hambone Willie Newbern’s “Rollin’ and Tumblin’”, and “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had” has an almost jazzy swing.