Watch Muddy Waters perform ‘Mannish Boy’ with The Band in 1976
One of the greatest gifts to modern music, especially rock, was the blues. As one of the genre’s most salient proponents, Muddy Waters embodies the blues spirit that we look back to when we hear the genre mentioned. His electric shows and sentimental recordings have well and truly earned him a position in history as The Father Of Modern Chicago Blues.
While Elvis Presley’s iconography may have a greater reach, Waters’ influence was arguably just as important. His electric blues style has been cited by the likes of Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC as a guiding light, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps Waters’ keenest and most prominent disciples are The Rolling Stones, who even named themselves after Waters’ 1950 hit ‘Rollin’ Stone’.
While Waters was known for penning many of his blues standards, his biggest hit, ‘Mannish Boy’, was derived from Bo Diddley’s 1955 classic ‘I’m A Man’. Waters recorded his reworking in the same year as Diddley’s and once again in 1977 for his acclaimed Johnny Winter-produced album, Hard Again.
The lyrics to ‘Mannish Boy’ were an affirmation of manhood which took on a palpable intensity with Waters’ characteristically anguished delivery. He took the same simple yet effective guitar riff as he used in ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ to give ‘Mannish Boy’ its legs, and it ran on to become one of the most important blues standards of all time.
“Growing up in the South, African-Americans [would] never be referred to as a man – but as ‘boy’. In this context, the song [is] an assertion of black manhood,” Waters once said of the song’s racial angle, per the Official Muddy Waters Website.
In the late 1960s, Jimi Hendrix treated the song to psychedelic tampering, and it became a staple of his live performances. The late guitar hero recorded his cover in April 1969, but it remained unreleased for decades. The track was finally given its official release via BBC Radio 6 in 2018.
Today, we remember another version of the blues staple performed live by Muddy Waters and The Band in 1976. The powerful performance at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco was included in The Band’s Martin Scorsese-directed concert film, The Last Waltz, in 1978. Watch below.
