25/06/26 - At Newport 1960 - Muddy Waters - 1960 - Chess Some are syrup and some are sherbet. At this moment, I am 100% sherbert- fizzing, zipping, a bit too acidic, too much, too soon dissolved. A dash of sherbert could be sharp, fun, but this feels like a pinprick deluge. 1001 days seems enough time to simmer some syrup into the system. My anxiety dreams aside - this is all to say this album was not sherbet. No, it was pure, unadulterated, opaque and amber ooze. It was rich, and smooth and self-assured. It was cool as hell. It almost made me forget that I walking to Sainsbury's with low battery, sunstroke and a report to write up instead I could have been on a white-washed porch by a lake with a beer in one hand and a pack of cards in the other. The album made me want to learn how to shuffle with one hand, throw a bullseye, toss a cocktail shaker around, dust off my grandad's piano stool, become an expert in the blues and dance. 1000 days to go seems enough time to learn a few tricks. A classic sherbet response I am sure. Muddy Waters at Newport, just felt powerful and proud and unapologetically unvarnished. Muddy Waters aka McKinley Morganfield - what a voice, what an artist. No wonder he is called "the father of modern blues". The album felt like a family - each clearly related, jostling and melding with each other. My fave tracks were: 'I'm your hoochie, coochie man'-a classic for a reason, 'I've got my mojo working pt.2' - for the love of the game, meanest woman - any song about a curly-haired baddie gotta be on there, 'soon forgotten' - if I'm pulling the Deniro grimace of approval another straight track to the list, Goodbye Newport blues - my favourite, just beautiful. Ironically, at the actual festival, this was apparently spontaneously written by leader of the Harlem Renaissance - James Mercer Langston Hughes - and performed by blues pianist Otis Spann. A fantastic first entry, what next?
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