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Little Walter was the harp player on Muddy's Louisiana Blues.

Theshuffleking voted for Cotton. I also love Cotton's playing, but I like the stuff he did with his own band better than the things he did with Muddy. As Cotton himself has said, when he was with Muddy's band he was directed by Muddy to do his best to play like Little Walter, and on Muddy's sessions Leonard Chess told him the same thing. Cotton proved on his own records that he was really coming out of a different bag than LW, and IMHO he wasn't the best LW imitator who played with Muddy - that honor goes to Junior Wells. So in a way, I guess you could say that when he was with Muddy, we weren't hearing everything he could do.

The one exception to this IMO was when he played on Muddy's "Hard Again" comeback LP in the mid '70s. By that point Cotton was entirely his own man, and wasn't making any concessions to anyone. And I LOVE his playing on that LP - some of the best he ever recorded.

So - no surprise here - I have to say that LW was the harp player who best accompanied Muddy. He set the standard, and everyone else who followed him was really just trying to fill his shoes, but for that particular gig, no one really came close.

Scott