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The Rolling Stones may have just celebrated their 50th Anniversary but back in 1981, when they were rapidly approaching their 20th, band members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Ian Stewart joined legendary blues player Muddy Waters in a Chicago club to perform a set of blistering blues numbers.
Let me set the stage for you, it was at Buddy Guy’s Checkerboard Lounge in Chicago that one November night a band strikes up and plays a couple of songs, no ordinary band , this is Muddy Waters backing band. The legend himself takes to the stage and during his 3rd song, “Baby Please Don’t Go”, an empty table at the front is suddenly filled with several members of the Stones entourage.
It’s during the earlier number “Country Boy” that you really get to see the influence that Waters has had over Keith Richards’ career- shortly they’ll be playing together. Jagger is up there on stage first and it’s not long before Richards strides across the table top to take his place the other side of Waters. Now, those of you who know me well will know that I am a massive Stones fan/collector/obsessive and the first time I watched this DVD I actually spent the next 45 minutes focused on one thing….. did the black Strat passed to Richards have 5 strings or 6? Why? Well that, my dear friends, would indicate whether this event in musical history was a pure right time/right place moment or planned to the tee- if that Strat had 5 strings, as per Keith’s preferred tuning, then they were expecting him!!!! For the record, I am still undecided!!!
One thing you can say about Jagger, apart from he clearly had no stylist in 1981, is that he can’t half sing the blues- and when it comes to Ian Stewart the great man played up a storm on piano, it is a shame that although he played on most Stones albums (and also with the likes of Led Zep) until his untimely death in 1985, anyone other than a Stones fan wouldn’t know what a great player he was.
So what of the gig itself? Well, you get Jagger, Richards, Wood and Stewart ripping it up with one of music’s true originators- tracks such as “Hoochie Coochie Man”, the afore mentioned “Country Boy” and “Baby Please Don’t Go”, the backing band’s “”Flip Flop and Fly”, the Lefty Dizz led instrumental version of “Baby Please Don’t Go”, “Got My Mojo Working” featuring Buddy Guy, Keith’s solo on “Next Time You See Me” or set closer “Champagne and Reefer” this really is a great reminder of not only how blues orientated The Rolling Stones are but also of the immense musical influence of Muddy Waters, who died 2 years later- the blues world may have lost a legend forever but DVD’s like this will forever hold testament to his legacy.
Nikk Gunns
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