Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, Little Walter — Super Blues

I think I’ve said before, my first visit to Siren Records in Doylestown, PA, yielded a treasure trove of blues. HIstorically, used record stores have not done well with the blues, offering battered B.B. King records someone’s grandmother liked, albums that are only blues-adjacent, or some weak compilations/greatest hits. I don’t blame them – they don’t stock it because no one buys it. Why the basis for nearly all popular music in the past 6-7 decades goes unappreciated is a colossal mystery to me, but so it goes.

On a return visit to Siren in late 2020, I found a few additional blues records I wanted, so I wasn’t unpleased. I added this one from 1967 to the pile even though it had a “super group” vibe (I mean, the name) and the songs seemed . . . well, they’ve been done before. I’m not a big Bo Diddley fan – there are beats that aren’t the Bo Diddley beat – but I figured with Muddy and Little Walter, what could go wrong?

Eh. It’s sub-great. It’s fine, but nearly every blues record I own is better. There’s three Bo Diddley songs in a row, and like Chuck Berry songs, they can be a little difficult to distinguish musically. They cover three great Willie Dixon songs but still there’s something lacking. I can’t even say it’s poorly produced, as Ralph Bass is credited and he’s all over some of my absolute favorite blues records. But . . . it just doesn’t click. I had a hard time even decided which artist to file it under, since on vinyl I don’t have independent records by any of them. So I decided I was most likely to remember Muddy was on it (even though it was Bo who kinda killed the vibe for me), and filed it under M for Muddy Waters.

Ah, well, they can’t all be gems.

Oh, and the back cover “story” about using Bo, Muddy and Walter to end the Viet Nam war? Ugh.