Hard Again

List Price : CDN$ 12.99

Amazon Price : CDN$ 12.99

Usually ships in 24 hours

Amazon Marketplace : CDN$ 9.28

Usually ships in 1-2 business days.

Product Details

Artist : Muddy Waters
Binding : Audio CD
EAN : 0696998681729
Label : Sony Music Canada Inc.
Number of Discs : 1
Product Group : Music
Release Date : 2004-06-01
UPC : 696998681729

ASIN : B00023GGGW

Track Listings for

Disc-1
1. Mannish Boy
2. Bus Driver
3. I Want to Be Loved
4. Jealous Hearted Man
5. I Can't Be Satisfied
6. Blues Had a Baby and They Named It Rock and Roll, Pt. 2
7. Deep Down in Florida
8. Crosseyed Cat
9. Little Girl
10. Walking Through the Park [#][*]

Customers who bought this goods also bought.

Customer Reviews

Excellent! But then again, it always was (2004-06-29)

Most artists in their 60s would just have rested on their laurels, being admired and cited as a major influence by legions of younger musicians.But not Muddy Waters. He recorded and toured right up until the end of his life, and this gritty 1977 album, the first of three studio albums produced by Texas guitarist Johnny Winter, recharged his career as well as winning Muddy a Grammy (in the "Traditional Folk" category!).

This 2004 reissue has been remastered, but not remixed (there was no need, says former Muddy guitarist Bob Margolin, who has written the excellent, warm and informative anecdotal liner notes). And one bonus track has been added to the original nine songs, a great rendition of the classic "Walking Through The Park" which was omitted from the original album release (probably because of the limited playing time of the LP).

If you already own "Hard Again" on CD you don't need to run out and secure a copy right away...the sound on the first CD reissue was good enough, and if you're a Muddy fan you probably have "Walking Through The Park" somewhere in your collection already. And this 1977 re-recoring is not particularly different from the original.But if you don't have it, go get it right away. These recordings usually don't show up on the various Muddy Waters-compilations (they only chronicle his Chess years), and while some of the songs are "only" new versions of 50s and 60s numbers, the album as a whole remains one of the strongest Muddy Waters ever recorded. The band is magnificent...Waters himself only sings, according to Bob Margolin, so all the Muddy Waters-like slide guitar riffs are actually played by Johnny Winter. But there's no mistaking the great James Cotton, Muddy's former harmonica player drafted to play on this album, or the supple, muscular groove laid down by the great Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, one of the best-ever blues drummers (alongside Fred Below, of course). He and bassist Charles Calmese form a top-notch rhythm section all the way through.

The album has a wonderful "live" feel, and literally everything is great, from the opening holler of the one-chord "Mannish Boy" over the magnificent acoustic slide guitar blues "I Can't Be Satisfied" (originally the flip side of Muddy's first single), to the seven-minute slow grind of "Little Girl"."Hard Again" (the origin of the title is explained in lurid detail by Bob Margolin) should not be missing from any collection of electric Chicago blues. It is one of Muddy Waters' finest moments, alongside the Newport album and 1969's "Fathers And Songs".

ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL AND REQUIRED, PART 1 (2004-06-08)

If you are a fan of the blues, and more importantly, Muddy Waters, this is the beginning of an essential triad that marked the grand finale of a long and storied career of the seminal blues figure of American music. For all the talk about Robert Johnson and Charlie Payton, the blues would never have evolved without Muddy Waters. There are any number of great CDs available from his career, but none as protean as the final three he did with Johnny Winter, plus the MUDDY MISSISIPPI WATERS LIVE CD and THE WOODSTOCK ALBUM guided by Levon Helm. These are the very last of his efforts and they are precious documents of the man who plugged the guitar in. Think about that just for a moment.The remastered LIVE CD is an honest and uncompromising document of the Waters band in full flight, and while what was the official release suffers from Winters' presence, the second disc of the set is just so amazing that words fail to convey its power. While I am no fan of Johnny Winters, his work at the controls and in the studio with Waters through the course of these recordings is truly genius. This particular disc is as raw and as primal as the blues gets. It features Muddy's band, including Pinetop Perkins, Bob Margolin, Willie Smith, Calvin Jones Luther Johnson in a fired up, red hot, incendiary mood, and they simply burn through the catalog. This version of "Mannish Boy" is the most feral you'll ever hear. "Deep Down in Florida" steams like the Everglades in August. "The Blues had a Baby" rocks with a hip grinding intensity. "I can't Be Satisfied" threatens all sorts of promiscuity, and "Crosseyed Cat" is as quintessentially a part of African American humour (which is also a key element of the blues) as it gets. A bonus track is added from the sessions. The remastering is incredible: this sounds as though it was done live, first take, and they all nailed it. Were he to have passed away right here, Muddy would have left us with an endearing ememory of his force. But the best was still to come.Make no mistake, get this. This IS the blues.

Look for similar items by category

Styles > Blues
Styles > Blues > Regional Blues