McKinley Morganfield was hardly the name for a blues giant, let alone one whose influence spread far beyond boundaries of age, geography, and genre. So Muddy Waters it became, a moniker that both epitomized his Delta roots and the troubled moral climate of his age. Deconstruct Waters's music--the Son House-inspired slide work; a jazzman's innate phrasing and sense of timing; a voice that was weary, wise, and dignified all at once--and it won't come close to the mere sum of its parts.

Better to listen as this collection (whose original 1966-67 albums sought to cash in on a waning folk movement) bounces from "Mannish Boy" (his potent response to Chess Records labelmate Bo Diddley's copping his style for "I'm a Man") across 15 years of his history with Chess and his deep Delta roots, including early, stripped-down reworkings of Robert Johnson ("Walkin' Blues," "Kind Hearted Woman") and the roots classic "Rollin' and Tumblin'" to the smoky jazz-blues of "The Same Thing," Willie Dixon's 1964 reworking of his classic, "Spoonful."

The material from the '40s often features Waters accompanied only by Ernest "Big" Crawford on bass, music as elementally pure as Waters ever recorded. It's arguably the only collection of the Real Folk Blues series (which also includes titles by John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, and Sonny Boy Williamson) that really lives up to its "folk blues" billing. More than a mere greatest-hits introduction, the albums compiled here often capture the rare, naked essence of Waters' soulful muse. --Jerry McCulley