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Description
**Willie Dixon's *I Am the Blues* (1970)** stands as a defiant reclamation of his own compositional legacy, issued on Columbia Records with production by Abner Spector and Dixon himself at the helm. At once a studio project and a retrospective, the album serves as Dixon's sonic autobiography-the same year his prose memoir of the same name hit the stands-asserting his dual role as arranger and architect of the Chicago blues canon. [^1]
The project's conceit: Dixon reinterprets songs he originally penned for Chess Records in the early 1960s, performing them for the first time in his own voice after decades of having others embody them. Tracks like "Back Door Man," "Spoonful," and "The Little Red Rooster" were first recorded by Howlin' Wolf, with Dixon on bass and co-producer behind the boards. Meanwhile, "Hoochie Coochie Man" and "You Shook Me" were Muddy Waters' turf-records Dixon produced, then reclaimed here. The lineup-Walter Horton on harmonica, Lafayette Leake and Sunnyland Slim on piano, Johnny Shines on guitar-shows off the "Chicago Blues All Stars"'s collective prowess, though, as [^2] notes, Dixon's vocal approach remains secondary to his command of composition and curation.
[^1]: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_the_Blues)
[^2]: [AllMusic](https://www.allmusic.com/album/i-am-the-blues-mw0000102253)
Critically, the album has been lauded as both a well-mounted production and a poignant meditation on authorship, despite Robert Christgau's observation that "Dixon doesn't need to be a good singer." The album's inclusion in the Blues Hall of Fame (1986) confirms its stature, even if some reviews prefer the original Chess performances. Still, to hear Dixon sing his own compositions is to witness a rare moment of artistic sovereignty-a man finally allowed to step from the shadows of his compositions and step into the spotlight.
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