Using a name like The Real Folk Blues for a Muddy Waters album is a little like calling an apple a round, crunchy banana: They’re both fruit—but getting one when you were thinking about the other would throw you for a loop. By the time this compilation of early singles was released in 1965, Waters was known as more than just an electric player. His music had also marked a path away from the starkness of early country blues, and toward something more cosmopolitan and extroverted. It was a shift that reflected the Great Migration of Black Americans from the Deep South toward northern cities—and a shift that helped solidify blues as the bridge to what the world by then knew as rock ’n’ roll. And, boy—the music on The Real Folk Blues makes you want to live in all the rude, earthy ways the gift of life allows. In Waters’ world, you become cursed at childhood (“Gypsy Woman”); watch your house burn (“You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had”); and go with a girl because she carries a knife (“Walkin’ Thru the Park”). And you love every minute of it. Therein lies the paradox of good blues: It talks a lot about feeling bad, but it tends to make you feel anything but.