The Best of Muddy Waters

Chess released the collection in April 1958. Its twelve songs had come out as singles between 1948 and 1954, and most reached the top 10 of the Billboard rhythm and blues charts. It was Waters's first album and the third long-playing record Chess issued. The label re-sequenced it and retitled it Sail On in February 1969, and it came out on CD in 1987. The Blues Foundation inducted it into its Hall of Fame as a Classic of Blues Recording in 1983.

Chess shortened the title of (I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man to Hoochie Coochie on this album. Willie Dixon played bass on I Just Want to Make Love to You, I'm Ready and (I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man, and Ernest 'Big' Crawford on several of the earlier tracks. Little Walter played harmonica, Jimmy Rogers guitar and Otis Spann piano, with Fred Below, Elgin Evans and Leonard Chess on drums or bass drum. The liner notes were by Studs Terkel. Together with At Newport 1960, it was an important influence on the emerging younger white blues scenes in the United States and Britain.