Muddy Waters - Mojo: The Live Collection (2000) [CD Rip]

This album is subtitled "The Live Collection", and while that may sound a little ominous, "Mojo" is certainly not a second-rate collection of hap-hazardly chosen live performances. On the contrary, these are some of the very best live recordings of Muddy Waters ever available.

Superbly remastered, "Mojo" features excellent sound, capturing Muddy Waters in Washington and Oregon in 1971, and in Switzerland in 1976, a total of 74 minutes of music.
The core of the Muddy Waters Band is in place on both the '71 and the '76 recordings, veteran blues drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith and pianist Joe "Pinetop" Perkins, and harp duties are more than ably handled by George "Harmonica" Smith and Jerry Portnoy respectively. Muddy himself is in excellent form, and the track list is superb...tough, swinging renditions of Muddy Waters' best-known songs, and numerous lesser-known but equally fabulous ones as well.
"Mojo" opens with a terrific, muscular rendition of "Rollin' And Tumblin'", after which it goes from highlight to highlight: "Got My Mojo Working", a lean, mean rendition of "Walkin' Blues", a slow, soulful "Howlin' Wolf", and an interesting, minor-note flavoured "Mannish Boy", which owes a lot to the huge pocket of the drummer who makes the five-minute, one-chord song into the powerhouse that it is.

The great Willie "Big Eyes" Smith lays down a deep groove with his energetic, versatile playing, and the interaction between the rhythm section and Pinetop Perkins is worth noticing as well; Perkins contributes mightily to the magnificent swinging feel of songs like "Crawlin' King Snake", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Walkin' Thru The Park", and "Rollin' And Tumblin'", and his solo on "Can't Get No Grindin' (what's the matter with the mill)" completely takes over the track, even though it gets stiff competition from Jerry Portnoy's harp solo and a fiery guitar solo by Bob Margolin.
And Luther Johnson shines on a rough, tough rendition of "Dust My Broom", doing the lead vocals while Muddy Waters plays the howling slide guitar.

The sound, the material, and the musicianship make this one of the finest live blues albums I have ever heard, and a worthy companion to the classic "Muddy Waters At Newport".
A must-have! ~Docendo Discimus