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Concept
Electric Mud
Summary
Electric Mud is the fifth studio album by Muddy Waters, with members of Rotary Connection playing as his backing band. Released in 1968, it imagines Muddy Waters as a psychedelic musician. Producer Marshall Chess suggested that Muddy Waters record it in an attempt to appeal to a rock audience.
The album peaked at number 127 on Billboard 200 album chart. It was controversial for its fusion of electric blues with psychedelic elements.
The 1960s saw Marshall Chess seeking to introduce Muddy Waters' music to a younger audience; Chess Records, Waters' record label, founded by Marshall's father, Leonard Chess, released a series of compilation albums of Muddy Waters' older music repackaged with psychedelic artwork.
In 1967, Marshall Chess formed Cadet Concept Records as a subsidiary of Chess Records. The label's first release was the self-titled debut album of Rotary Connection, a psychedelic band.
The next project Chess conceived was Electric Mud, a psychedelic rock concept album; Marshall later stated, "I came up with the idea of Electric Mud to help Muddy make money. It wasn't to bastardize the blues. It was like a painting, and Muddy was going to be in the painting. It wasn't to change his sound, it was a way to get it to that market."
Chess hoped the new albums would sell well among fans of psychedelic rock bands influenced by Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. According to Muddy Waters, "Quite naturally, I like a good-selling record. I was looking at it because I played for so many of these so-called hippies that I thought probably I could reach them."
To provide the psychedelic sound Chess sought for the album, he assembled "the hottest, most avant garde jazz rock guys in Chicago": Gene Barge, Pete Cosey, Roland Faulkner, Morris Jennings, Louis Satterfield, Charles Stepney and Phil Upchurch. According to one account of the album's recording, Cosey, Upchurch and Jennings joked about calling the group "The Electric Niggers". According to Marshall Chess, "We were going to call them the Electric Niggers, but my dad wouldn't let me.
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