Muddy Waters - Muddy Waters Sings "Big Bill" (Chess Acoustic Sounds Series)

Muddy Waters Sings Big Bill is a heartfelt salute from one Chicago blues giant to another, pressed on 180-gram vinyl for the Chess Acoustic Sounds Series.

Recorded in 1959, not long after Big Bill Broonzy's death, and released by Chess in 1960, the album finds Waters honouring a man who had helped him find his feet after he moved to Chicago in the 1940s. Broonzy's songs came out of an older, largely acoustic country-blues tradition. Waters plugs them into the electric band sound he had built at Chess, with Otis Spann's rolling piano and James Cotton's harmonica right alongside him.

The results are warm and loose. Tell Me Baby opens with an easy strut, and Southbound Train rumbles along on a steady, chugging groove. I Feel So Good is pure celebration, Muddy's voice big and assured, while Just a Dream (On My Mind) eases the pace into a wistful, late-night lament. Ten compact songs, no filler, and plenty of room for the band to breathe.

The Acoustic Sounds Series treats records like this with real care, and this one deserves it. It is a lesser-known corner of the Muddy Waters catalogue, yet a revealing one, a portrait of the bluesman looking back at his roots while standing firmly in the electric sound he helped invent.