Given that Sony Legacy issued Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live in 2003 with a bonus disc showcasing even more material from the concerts that made up the album, and that the label is planning a similar deluxe reissue of King Bee for spring 2004, this BGO package is somewhat of a curiosity piece more than any kind of defining statement. Nonetheless, the music featured here is nothing short of top-notch, showcasing Muddy Waters with his last great band. The live album is preferred because of its raw, woolly dynamic and the obvious exuberance Muddy plays and sings with. Likewise, the pairing of Johnny Winter and Bob Margolin on guitars, Pinetop Perkins on piano, and James Cotton on harmonica on a number of tracks is one of the greatest blues bands in history. On the remainder of the cuts, where Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson replaces Winter, Jerry Portnoy replaces Cotton, and Charles Calmese takes over the bass chair vacated by Calvin Jones, the effect is no less electrifying. The seven cuts here all sting and soar. On the King Bee sessions, the band is not quite as inspired -- perhaps because they are in a recording studio -- but the liner notes suggest there were tensions within the band that eventually tore them apart. Still, the music here is head and shoulders above almost everything else in the genre issued in 1981. While the music recorded for the sessions didn't amount to a full album, Winter and Waters culled enough leftover material from the Hard Again and I'm Ready sessions to assemble a house-rocking blues outing. For the money, this set is righteous, features great sound, and has a great set of liner notes by journalist Tony Russell. Muddy went out like champ and this music proves to all the Young Lions out there that he cast a long shadow all the way to the end of his life. ~ Thom Jurek, AMG

Estimated despatch 14-20 days after ordering.