The Complete Plantation Recordings, subtitled The Historic 1941-42 Library of Congress Field Recordings, is a compilation album of the blues musician
Muddy Waters' first recordings collected by
Alan Lomax for the
Library of Congress in 1941-42 and released by the
Chess label in 1993.[1] Lomax recorded Waters at Stovall Farm in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1941 and returned the following year to make additional recordings.[2] Thirteen tracks were originally released as Down on Stovall’s Plantation in 1966 on
Testament Records.[3][4]
The album was inducted into the
Blues Hall of Fame in 2001 as a Classic of Blues Recording.[7]
The AllMusic reviewer Cub Koda wrote, "At long last, Muddy's historic 1941-1942 Library of Congress
field recordings are all collected in one place, with the best fidelity that's been heard thus far. ... Of particular note are the inclusion of several interview segments with Muddy from that embryonic period and a photo of Muddy playing on the porch of his cabin, dressed up and looking sharper than any Mississippi sharecropper on Stovall's plantation you could possibly imagine. This much more than just an important historical document; this is some really fine music imbued with a sense of place, time and loads of ambience."[5]
Track listing
All compositions credited to McKinley Morganfield except where noted