Welding wrote, "'Electric Mud' does great disservice to one of the blues' most important innovators, and prostitutes the contemporary styles to which his pioneering efforts have led." Although American critics panned the album, it was better received in England. According to Marshall Chess, "It was the biggest Muddy Waters record we ever had at Chess, and it dropped instantly. The English accepted it; they are more eccentric." Impact, influence and legacy Muddy Waters recorded After the Rain the following year, incorporating elements of the sound of Electric Mud. According to Cosey, "I'll never forget, as soon as I walked into the studio for the follow-up and Muddy saw me, he threw his arms around me, said 'Hey, how you doing, boy, play some of that stuff you played on that last album.'" While blues purists criticized the album, Pete Cosey learned from Jimi Hendrix's valet that Hendrix would listen to "Herbert Harper's Free Press News" from the album for inspiration before performing live. Waters later claimed that he disliked the album and its sound, and that he did not consider the album to be blues. He stated, "Every time I go into Chess, [they] put some un-blues players with me [...] If you change my sound, then you gonna change the whole man." In the biography The Mojo Man, Muddy Waters stated "That Electric Mud record was dogshit. But when it came out, it started selling like wild, but then they started sending them back. They said, 'This can't be Muddy Waters with all this shit going on, all this wha-wha and fuzztone.'" AllMusic reviewer Richie Unterberger panned the album as being "crass". However, the album has attracted new admirers among the hip hop scene; in Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed, Gene Sculatti wrote that "The rhythm seems to anticipate hip-hop by three decades." Rapper Chuck D said of the album, "to me it's a brilliant record. I've played it about a thousand times. The voice and character of Muddy Waters stand above the new music. Muddy's vocals project. That's what created a hook for me to get into it: these vocals are actually pulling the music." Chuck D stated that he had been introduced to Electric Mud by a member of Public Enemy, which sparked an interest in Muddy Waters' earlier work, and in roots-oriented blues. Chuck D explained, "It took me