Nail the ToneMuddy Waters

I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man

Muddy Waters · Chess single 1560 (later on The Best of Muddy Waters, 1958) · 1954

The riff is a low, unison stop-time figure in A, cut live at a Chess session in Chicago on January 7, 1954 with Muddy most likely on his 1952 Les Paul goldtop through a small tube combo turned up to the edge of breakup. Use the neck P-90 with the tone knob backed off, mids up, treble down, and almost no reverb — the grit is amp and room, not a pedal. Play it with thumb and fingers on the low strings and let the stops breathe.

Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Standard tuning, key of A in 12/8; the stop-time riff sits on the low E and A strings and is doubled in unison by Little Walter's harmonica and Willie Dixon's upright bass, with Jimmy Rogers on second guitar.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Gibson Les Paul goldtop (1952) · P-90 · neck (rhythm) pickup, tone rolled back slightly
  • Gretsch Synchromatic archtop with DeArmond pickup · DeArmond floating pickup · between neck and bridge

Amp

Fender tweed combo (Deluxe/Pro class)

GAIN
6.5
TREBLE
5.0

No session document names Muddy's amp on the January 7, 1954 date; Guitar World says his early Chess sides were "likely" a tweed Fender combo, while long-running player discussion argues for a Gibson GA-20/GA-40-type 1x12 as the Chess-era sound. A tweed Deluxe has only Volume and a single Tone, so bass, mid, presence and reverb do not exist on it.

Amp

Low-wattage tube combo (modern equivalent)

GAIN
6.0
BASS
6.0
MID
7.0
TREBLE
4.5
PRESENCE
3.0
REVERB
1.5

Translation for a modern three-band amp: push the volume to the first hint of breakup, keep mids forward and the top end dark, almost no reverb since the record's ambience is room and tape, not spring.

Tone character

fat P-90 warmth · forward mids · edge-of-breakup crunch · dark, rolled-off top · thick low-string thump

easy

The notes themselves are a simple low-string figure in A, but it has to be placed dead against the stops in a 12/8 shuffle and played with a heavy, thumb-driven attack rather than picked evenly.

Want this on your own amp?

These are the record's settings. Tell us what you play through and we'll translate every knob to the amp you actually own — free.

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Sources