Personnel include: Muddy Waters (vocals, guitar); Johnny Winter, Buddy Guy (guitar); James Cotton (harmonica); Otis Spann (piano); Willie Dixon (upright bass).

Liner Note Author: Mary Katherine Aldin.

Recording information: 1948 - 1976.

Outside of Robert Johnson, there are few blues musicians as iconic as Muddy Waters. Chess's superbly selected and compiled DEFINITIVE COLLECTION is as close to a perfect compilation as listeners are likely to find on one disc. Arranged chronologically, the 24 tracks start with 1948's slinky "I Can't Be Satisfied" and end with 1976's "Crosseyed Cat." In between are the immortal Waters classics "Rollin' & Tumblin'," "(I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man," "I Just Want To Make Love To You," among others that changed the sound of the blues and helped birth a genre called rock & roll.