The Legendary Blues Band - Red Hot 'n' Blue (1983)

For their second album, the Legendary Blues Band -- featuring members of Muddy Waters backing band, including Pinetop Perkins, Peter Ward, Calvin Jones, Jerry Portnoy and Willie Smith -- nearly captured the big, powerful sound of Muddy at his peak. Perkins and Jones don't have the same presence as Waters, but they're fine vocalists in their own right, and the band itself has the same intoxicating rush that made such latter-day Muddy efforts as Hard Again so enjoyable. And that means that Red Hot 'N' Blue is as close to Waters as you're going to get without Muddy himself -- and that means it's one of the better Chicago blues records of its era.