Joan Armatrading on Electric Mud

Joan Armatrading: I was trying to remember when I first heard this Muddy Waters album called Electric Mud. I know I heard it in America and I know that having bought the album I promptly left it in a taxi and then spent the next I don’t  know how many years trying to find it again. It’s not an easy record to track down.

It was only in 2015 or 2018, when I was on tour in the US that I found the record in Jack White, of White Strips, shop that I was able to finally have a copy of it again.

Even though I didn’t have that record in my possession for such a long time I knew all the songs on it. These were songs of Muddy Waters’ that were famous, I’m Your Hoochie Coohie Man, I just Wanna Make Love To you, I’m a Man and one that just might be my favourite She’s All Right. I love the tone, the sound the eccentricity of the guitar playing on this track. I love his phrasing. I think this blues pioneer  captured the blues in a really progressive way on this album and it remains my absolute favourite blues album ever.

This was an album that I read that Muddy didn’t like because he felt forced to be a Jimi Hendrix mimic. He wasn’t, he played in his own inimitable way and I love it.

Joan Armatrading on Electric Mud: Her new album, Consequences, is out now.