Electric Mud - Legacy

Legacy

Muddy Waters recorded After the Rain the following year, incorporating elements of the sound of Electric Mud. According to Cosey, "I'll never forget, as soon as I walked into the studio for the follow-up and Muddy saw me, he threw his arms around me, said 'Hey, how you doing, boy, play some of that stuff you played on that last album.'" Following strong criticism of the album, Muddy Waters claimed that he disliked the album and its sound, and that he did not consider the album to be blues. He stated, "Every time I go into Chess, put some un-blues players with me If you change my sound, then you gonna change the whole man." In the biography The Mojo Man, Muddy Waters stated "That Electric Mud record was dogshit. But when it came out, it started selling like wild, but then they started sending them back. They said, 'This can't be Muddy Waters with all this shit going on, all this wha-wha and fuzztone.'"

According to Robert Gordon in Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters, the valet of Jimi Hendrix later told Pete Cosey that Hendrix would listen to "Herbert Harper's Free Press News" for inspiration before performing. Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones cited Electric Mud as the inspiration for the riff of "Black Dog". Allmusic reviewer Richie Unterberger panned the album as being "crass".

In Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed, Gene Sculatti wrote that "The rhythm seems to anticipate hip-hop by three decades." Chuck D stated that he had been introduced to Electric Mud by a member of Public Enemy, which sparked an interest in Muddy Waters' earlier work, and in roots-oriented blues. The documentary series The Blues, produced by Martin Scorsese, depicts the recording band for Electric Mud performing with Chuck D and members of The Roots. Cypress Hill samples "Tom Cat", from this album, on the interlude "Ultraviolet Dreams", from their self-titled debut album, as does Natas on their song "See You In Hell" from the album N of tha World. The rock/funk-oriented arrangement of "Mannish Boy" present on this album is sampled and featured prominently on the Gorillaz B-side "Left Hand Suzuki Method".