Bob Margolin will always be grateful to Muddy Waters, who had him play on six of the blues legend’s latter-day records in the ‘70s. “It changed the course of the rest of my life,” Margolin says, “because of the great music I learned from him, and the musicians I met through him.”

Before that, the Massachusetts-born guitarist had spent the late ‘60s merging blues with psych rock, before leaning fully into the blues. “It was moving, fun, and honest music,” he says. “I fell in love with that music and wanted to play it; and then I got into Muddy’s band, which was amazing.”

Another amazing moment came after Margolin had spent three years with Waters – he took part in The Last Waltz. “I realized it was a very special gig when I saw the people in the room,” he says.

He stuck with Waters until 1980 and they remained friends until his death in 1983. Since then he’s built a solo career, winning two Blues Music Awards. But that’s not his biggest takeaway.

“Some of the greatest blues players,like Hubert Sumlin, or B.B. King, were just the nicest people,” he recalls.

“They’d be really sweet to you. They were great and distinctive – you’d know who they were the second they played a note. But they were also the nicest human beings. I think that’s a good lesson.”

What led you to pick up guitar?

I really fell in love with Chuck Berry’s playing in about 1964. I followed that path of inspiration back to Muddy Waters and the blues, and really haven’t crawled out yet! I heard songs on the radio that were bluesy; and later I heard real blues songs, and I sought them out.

In the late ‘60s you were in a psychedelic Boston band called The Freeborne. What was the blue-meets-psyche scene like?

It was a very vibrant scene. There was a really great blues scene there with young people who loved the music. There were good players in town and creative rock music at a time when people were putting lots of styles together. It was a very exciting time for music. – it was a wide-open scene.

What gear were you using then?

I got a Fender Twin Reverb and put some JBL speakers in it. Around 1967 I got a mid ‘50s Gibson Les Paul fairly cheaply. I had it until about 1972, when it got stolen. Once I started playing in blues bands more, I got rid of the Twin Reverb and went to Fender Bassmans. The Twin Reverb seemed too bright and clean, rather than the dirty sound the smaller amps had.

How did you first meet Muddy Waters?

I loved his music more than anybody else’s – he was the main reason for me. I was in bands that opened up for him in the Massachusetts area. He saw our band in 1973, probably in March, and he could see what I was trying to play on guitar.

We were smart enough not to do Muddy Waters songs on a gig opening for Muddy Waters! But I was trying to play Jimmie Rodgers, Jimmy Reid and Elmore James. He was very encouraging to me, which was a thrill; it really meant a lot to me.

What led to your joining Muddy Waters’ band in 1973?

In August 1973 he came to Boston to start 55 days in a club there. I was the first one in the place, and on the first night – I think it was a Tuesday – I came in and the harmonica player asked me the fateful question: “Do you have any reefer?”

Did you?

I did! That’s what local musicians did for bands that on the road back then. But he also said, “Muddy just fired somebody last night.” Before I could even think about it, he went into the dressing room and got Muddy, who came out and said, “Come to my hotel room tomorrow and bring a guitar.”

I had things scoped out pretty good. I also knew it would be the best opportunity to learn about Chicago blues, and play them with the person who was at the top. Muddy knew I’d be interested – he presumed I’d do it if he wanted me. And it worked out that way: he gave me a chance to be in the band, and that lasted for almost seven years.

What was he like to be in a band with?

He could be a little moody sometimes, when he couldn’t hear anything on the bandstand. But a lot of times he was good-humored – and he was a very fair bandleader with the way that he ran the band.

He wanted you to know the music pretty well; not from rehearsing it, but from knowing what the song sounded like, and how to play it in the moment by following the cues that he’d give during songs like Baby, Please Don’t Go, Hoochie Coohie Man, and Got My Mojo Workin’.

It was an opportunity to watch and listen. But it was also about finding a part among seven musicians that wasn’t getting in anybody else’s way, and to add something meaningful . When you get a guitar solo, take it really, really strong – make a nice little statement. Then on the second verse of your solo, drive it home and send it over to the next person.

The band never talked about these things, but that’s what happened onstage from the first night that I played with them.

You participated in The Last Waltz with Muddy.

The band was on the road and he said, “Me, you, and the piano player are gonna fly out to San Francisco in a couple of days.” I had a Gibson archtop ES-150 from about the mid ‘50s with me. I used a Fender Stratocaster most of the time, but I happened to have that archtop guitar, so I used that for The Last Waltz.

When we were rehearsing the day before, I guess that guitar impressed people, because everybody was very nice to me. And they saw that I was playing with Muddy. It was exciting to meet and play with Paul Butterfield and Pinetop Perkins. But they didn’t actually stay past our set, which was around the middle of the night.

After the show, we went back to the hotel where the rehearsals had been. It was kind of a jam room and party. People were playing all night, including a lot of rock stars. Muddy and Pinetop were the oldest people there – they were in their 60s, which sounds young to me now! It was a fun night after the show.

Did you get to chat with Robbie Robertson?

I’ve been thinking about Robbie a lot because there’s a book that he published just before his death a couple of years ago. It’s about the time of The Last Waltz and right after it. But I didn’t really talk with Robbie at The Last Waltz or at the rehearsal – he was kind of busy, and there was nothing I had to say to him.

I did see him in November 2019, where he was a guest at The Last Waltz tribute that he also endorsed. I talked with him then, but we just talked about the music itself.

At the after-hours jam you mentioned, you sat in with Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton, right?

What’s interesting is I didn’t see Robbie at the end of the night; I’m sure he was somewhere. But we ended up having a jam at around seven in the morning that Bob Dylan put together. He had me on guitar, Eric Clapton on guitar, Dr. John on piano, Ronnie Wood on bass, Levon Helm on drums and Paul Butterfield on harmonica.

It wasn’t the greatest music I ever played, but it was interesting to sit in a room and see those people playing the blues, with Bob leading the jam and mostly doing Robert Johnson and Freddie King songs. It was fun to trade verses on Hideaway with Eric Clapton.

Did you get to chat with Eric?

We talked a little bit. I was telling him about the new album Muddy had just cut with Johnny Winter in October of 1976, Hard Again. I asked Eric if he knew Johnny because I figured they must have crossed paths since they were both into Robert Johnson and were very well-known blues-rock guitar players.

Eric said they hadn’t met yet. One time he’d called, but Johnny didn’t believe it was Eric! The next time I saw Johnny I asked him about that. He said, “Yeah, some guy said he was Eric Clapton. I hung up on him!”

Speaking of Johnny, you played on his 1977 album, Nothin’ but the Blues. What was that like?

That was recoded after the Hard Again album and tour, which was two months of playing mostly theaters. Johnny said, “I wanna get everybody in the studio right away, while we’re used to playing with each other.” In just a few days we knocked out an album of songs Johnny wanted to cover, and some things he wrote. It had the same spirit of what we were doing with Muddy, but with Johnny singing.

Why did you leave Muddy’s band in 1980?

Unfortunately there was a business problem with Muddy’s manager. The band hadn’t really changed since 1974, and in the middle of 1980, we were all negotiating with Muddy’s manager, trying to protect ourselves. The band ended up leaving – but all of us stayed friends with Muddy.

In November of 1980 I opened a show for him in Washington. I got to have a long talk with him at the end of the night, and said everything I ever would have wanted to say to him. That turned out to be the last time I saw him alive.

“But I’d call him on the phone every few weeks, just to be in touch with him. It meant a lot to me to be able to do that. I talked to him three weeks before he passed. I asked, “Do you ever pick up your guitar at home, just to play it?” He said, “No – I’ve been playing for 50 years. It’s there!”

In the years since, you’ve led a decorated solo career. Are you working on anything now?

I’m working on being at home; enjoying my home, my wife and my pets. I’ve been off the road for about a year. I’m sure I’m not done playing, but I’ve got nothing in the immediate future. I might be the first person you interview who isn’t promoting something new!

Keep up to date via Bob Margolin’s website.

Blues veteran Bob Margolin – better known as Steady Rollin’ – has looked back on the time a chance encounter backstage ended up with him playing guitar alongside his long-time hero, Muddy Waters.

Margolin was a key collaborator of blues legend Muddy Waters in the 1970s, appearing on a total of six of the icon's latter-day records. It was a very special era for multiple reasons. For Margolin, it gave him the chance to play alongside his ultimate music idol.

“Well, I really loved his music more than anybody else’s,” he tells Guitar World in a new interview.

“I was in bands that had opened up for Muddy when he was playing in the Massachusetts area. He saw our band earlier in 1973, probably in March, and we were trying to play blues, and he could see what I was trying to play on guitar.

“We were smart enough not to do Muddy Waters songs on a gig opening for Muddy Waters, but he could see that I was trying to play Jimmie Rodgers, Jimmy Reid, and Elmore James. He was very encouraging to me, which was a thrill because he was the most important musician in my life; it really meant a lot to me.”

Eventually, Margolin would get the opportunity to play alongside his guitar hero. Not only that – he also developed a friendship which lasted until Waters passed away in 1983.

“In August of 1973, Muddy came to Boston to start 55 days in a club there,” Margolin recalls. “I was the first one in the place, and on the first night, I think it was a Tuesday, I came in, saw the harmonica player, and he asked me the fateful question: ‘Do you have any reefer?’”

As luck would have it, Margolin did. But the conversation didn't end there.

“He also said, ‘Oh, Muddy just fired somebody last night…’ and before I could do or say anything, or even think about it, he went into the dressing room and got Muddy. Muddy came out and said, ‘Oh, good. Come to my hotel room tomorrow and bring a guitar.'

“He knew that I would be interested in doing it, and he just presumed that I would wanna do it if he wanted me… and it worked out that way.

“He gave me a chance to be in the band, and that lasted for almost seven years!” Margolin concludes.

Guitar World’s full interview with Bob Margolin will be published in the coming weeks.

In more recent Muddy Waters news, the Grammy-nominated bluesman Eric Bibb has just released a single that pays tribute to the blues pioneer.

Eric Bibb has shared the second single from his forthcoming album, One Mississippi, and it is a track named after, and written and recorded in tribute to, blues guitar pioneer Muddy Waters.

Muddy Waters, the song, is Bibb paying his dues to one of the most influential players of all time, a man whose licks inspired not just the up-and-coming blues cats like Bibb back in the day, but the rock players of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Just ask Keith Richards; he has described Waters as the rosetta stone for his musical education. And Bibb might be of the same opinion.

One Mississippi finds Bibb doing what he does best, telling stories, weaving a thread that pulls the past and present together. “This new collection of stories, from a not-too-distant American past and a tense global present, is a call for peace, justice, and unity in a divided world,” says Bibb.

One Mississippi comprises 13 original compositions, co-written by Bibb with the album’s producer, the Grammy-nominated Glen Scott (who played keys on Salt-N-Pepa’s Shoop and has worked with the likes of Mary J. Blige and Beverley Knight). The title track, however, is a cover.

“As much as I love writing and recording new songs, I also enjoy discovering and covering great songs by other songwriters,” says Bibb, though he didn’t need to look too far to discover this one – it was written by his old high-school friend, Janis Ian, with Fred Koller.

Bibb, who is based in Uppsala, Sweden, has recruited some top-tier guitar talent for the album, with British guitarist Robbie McIntosh – a guitarist who has played with John Mayer and Paul McCartney – sitting in with him.

A longtime collaborator of Bibb’s, Scott gives Muddy Waters a typically epicurean production, Bibb’s voice and acoustic guitar have that hot, biscuity gravel quality that makes it feel like it grew right up out of the soil itself, while McIntosh’s electric slide guitar snakes around a lithe groove. Paul Jones plays harp. Sven Lindvall plays the tuba.

“So happy to have Paul Jones and Robbie McIntosh onboard,” says Bibb. “Muddy Waters is one of my favorite tracks from my new album One Mississippi – Glen Scott’s production is a masterclass in funk.”

Last month, Bibb shared the video to This One Don’t, which features Greger Andersson on harmonica, and vocals from Shaneeka Simon and Sara Bergkvist Scott, and if that one has an irresistible energy it’s because it was all inspired by a live show. Bibb wanted to capture that spirit on record.

“The song was inspired by a wonderful gig at a Blues Fever festival in Vienna, where I played in front of a groovy crowd who loves dancing to the blues,” said Bibb. “Happily, we were able to include these folks in the video. Thanks to my ace producer, Glen Scott, and the superb musicians involved, this track is one of the funkiest I’ve ever recorded. As Alice Walker once said: ‘Hard times require furious dancing.’”

If you are UK-based, you might be able to take part in some of that furious dancing in the company of Bibb and his band. He has announced a full UK tour, commencing January 5 at London’s 229 club. See Erib Bibb for full dates and ticket details.

One Mississippi is available to pre-save, shipping January 30, 2026, via Repute Records.

A real player’s player, Paul Asbell has worked with Magic Sam, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Sonny Sitt, the Sun Ra Arkestra and more. He was even Trey Anastasio’s guitar teacher once upon a time.

“I began my gig career sitting in at blues clubs like Peppers’ and Theresa’s, which were near where I was living on the South Side,” he says of his start in Chicago. “I started getting calls to fill in, then I got hired full-time to fill those spots in working bands.”

Asbell straddled the line between blues and jazz in sessions and with his band, Kilimanjaro. “There’s far more chordal vocabulary within the jazz tune repertoire than there is in the blues repertoire,” he says. “It’s easy to spot a player who hasn’t spent years absorbing jazz vocabulary, who then tries to jump into those waters.

“I never wanted to be that guy. I spent years ’shedding jazz lines and learned a lot of jazz standards that I’d never been exposed to growing up.”

But he adds: “I never fell out of love with bluesy melodic expression, and the art of generating and digging into deep grooves. I never lost my love for expressive, soulful singing through the guitar – which is how I view the blues thing.”

Asbell recently published his memoir Stages: Ruminations, Rants, and Reminiscences on a Life in Music. As for what’s next, he says: “I kinda go where the gigs lead me. I’ll go for months playing all jazz and bebop gigs. Then I’ll find myself doing acoustic guitar gigs, playing what I call ‘steel string Americana. Then blues/funk gigs come up, and I’m off with .10s, instead of .12s.”

What inspired you to pick up the guitar?

“My dad was a professional folk singer and songwriter in the ’40s and ’50s. He toured with Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and other figures of the time. So there was always a guitar being played around the house. By age 11, I wondered if I could get anywhere with it. 65 years later, I’m still working at exactly that!”

Was there a moment when you felt like you’d found your sound?

“The sounds that grabbed me first were by Mississippi John Hurt, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Leadbelly, Blind Willie Johnson and Doc Watson – acoustic sounds. People don’t usually talk about ‘finding your sound’ in the world of acoustic guitar, since the tonal spectrum is not as wide as electric guitar, where pickups, amps, and FX are factored in to ‘finding your sound.’”

When did the electric guitar come into play?

“I started shortly after hearing Hoodoo Man Blues by Junior Wells in 1965. There was a guitarist listed as ‘Friendly Chap.’ It wasn’t long before I found out that was Buddy Guy, and I was hooked. Otis Rush and Earl Hooker came shortly after. I was only 16 when I heard them – they all lived just a few blocks from me.”

What was it like working with Muddy Waters?

“Truth be told, I never was in Mud’s band. I was hired by producer Norman Dayron to play rhythm guitar on the Fathers and Sons record, since my buddy Jeff Carp and I were playing in Sam Lay’s band at the time.

“Sam, of course, was somewhere between son and father – he had mentored me and Jeff in Muddy’s music, but he viewed himself as a son in relation to Muddy and Wolf, who he played with for many years before being hired by Paul Butterfield.”

How about Howlin’ Wolf?

“Actually, I was never in Wolf’s band either. But I was hired to play on the London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions. The producer, Norman Dayron, hoped to run a similar play to Muddy’s Fathers and Sons, this time using British icons like Eric Clapton, Stevie Winwood and Bill Wyman.

“When the tracks made their way back to Chicago, it became clear that some of them needed a bit of work – and some needed a lot of work. In the latter category was I Ain’t Superstitious, which had a nice slinky feel, and terrific vibey Strat part played by Clapton. But there was no excitement building.

“Dayron wanted Jeff Carp and me to build a horn part that became progressively more dynamic as the track developed, which we did. But then we realized that, around two-thirds of the way through, Clapton's guitar part was being overshadowed by the horns. If the horns had already been there, Clapton would have risen to the occasion and played lead fills to answer the dynamic horn lines.

“Since we were in Chicago, and Clapton was in London, I was tapped to fill in the spaces. At around 2:40, my licks are clearly audible until the end of the rideout a minute or so later. Dayron didn’t want to deflect from the British heavyweights, so I was given credit in the ‘special thanks’ section, next to Ahmet Ertegun, Mick Jagger and Robert Stigwood. The music biz can be a bit messy sometimes!”

What was it like working with Magic Sam?

“Sam was a powerhouse rhythm-and-lead-all-at-once player, who I was in awe of, like all my friends. I was quite surprised when I got a call from him to play rhythm guitar on 63rd St. Playing behind him was a masterclass in how to simultaneously be a bandleader, dynamite vocalist and killer entertainer, all rolled into one package.

“He had the voice, the guitar skills, the showmanship, and the good looks to hit big nationally. He’d have done exactly that if he hadn’t passed away at the ripe old age of 32. I’ve always said that Robert Cray, who possesses all those qualities in abundance, stepped into the slot that would have been Sam’s.”

What’s the story behind your work with Lightnin’ Hopkins?

“When I was 13, I discovered Lightnin’ on a 78 record that my dad had, and fell instantly in love. I listened to him constantly, and eventually I could play just like him, and I’d completely assimilated his irregular time, feel and meter!

“Most players are so ingrained to hearing the 12-bar blues structure that they can’t step outside of it to hear the storytelling. Since I’d spent literally hundreds of hours listening to him, it felt totally natural to me.”

On the R&B side, you’ve worked with Donny Hathaway. How did your gear and approach change from playing blues?

“One day in 1969 one of my all-time heroes, Pop Staples, asked me to play on a recording session he’d arranged downtown. We did one rehearsal at his house in South Shore before the session itself. Rufus Reid and Donny Hathaway were there – I’d met them while working at Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom Studio.

“At the time, I was pretty broke; I didn’t have a closetful of guitars and amps. I think I had a Gibson ES-295 and a 1955 Fender Tele. I used a ‘blackface’ Fender Super Reverb for pretty much all my gigs – that was the accepted amp of choice for all my heroes at the time. Guitar straight into the amp; nobody I knew was using pedals back then.”

Once you moved to Vermont, you worked with Big Mama Thornton and Sonny Stitt.

“After I made the move, I was out of the music scene for about 10 months. I got a call from a friend to put a band together to back Big Mama Thornton at Goddard College. It was probably the most hilarious clash of cultures and dress codes that I’ve ever been a part of in my 60-year career!

“Several years later, after I’d been digging deep into the language of jazz standards and bebop harmony, I was asked to back up Sonny Stitt. He was a chopmeister and a total master of the Charlie Parker bebop idiom. I did a lot of ’shedding in the weeks leading up that five-night run. Talk about intimidating!”

Your band, Kilimanjaro, served as Paul Butterfield’s backup band.

“It was a pretty cool touring setup were hired to be The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, but we also got to play an opening set of our jazz-oriented original tunes. At the end of our last tune, I would play a Bo Diddley-style rhythm guitar intro, Paul would hit the stage, and we were off and running as the PBBB that everyone had come to see.

“The whiplash of jazz into blues really caught people off guard – but once they figured out what was happening, they really dug it! I was using my trusty original ’59 Fender Bassman amp and a Strat-style Roland guitar.”

One of your credits is with the Sun Ra Arkestra.

“Sun Ra had passed by the time I did those gigs, and trumpeter Michael Ray was the bandleader. He was looking for musical energy, quirkiness and bold expression from his players, combined with the idea that things might turn into something unplanned at any moment. A good lesson – ya gotta pay attention at all times!”

What led you to finally unpack your life and write your book, Stages: Ruminations, Rants, and Reminiscences on a Life in Music?

“It started with me writing little and not-so-little pieces on Facebook, in order to celebrate my musical heroes’ birthdays. I’d include a personal anecdote or two from my history with the artist. Sometimes those anecdotes wound up suggesting a deeper meaning and resonance than I’d originally set out to write.

“I realized I was doing something with words that I had spent most of my life doing with notes, chords and tones – painting a picture and telling a larger story. It’s become a habit at this point; one that I can’t seem to kick! People started commenting, ‘So, Paul, when’s the book coming out?’”

After going through your memories, what was most apparent about your life and career?

“My former guitar student and now good friend, Trey Anastasio, wrote something for my book that I really liked. I hadn’t consciously realized until he wrote it that my connection to the history of the music – which I always took for granted – would be apparent to someone much younger than myself.

“Writing the 32 essays that wound up being the book has given me a more conscious awareness of how important the history of the music I love has been to me – and, hopefully, to others. I suppose it comes out whenever I play, even if I don’t realize it at the time.”

• Stages: Ruminations, Rants, and Reminiscences on a Life in Music is out now via Phoenix Books.

If you managed to catch the latest Michael B. Jordan movie Sinners, you might have spotted a very familiar figure who's a dead-ringer for Buddy Guy. Spoiler alert: it is indeed Buddy Guy. Much like Sammie (the character Guys plays in the movie), the 88-year-old still plays at his club in Chicago – all in the name of keeping the blues alive.

“There’s very few radio stations other than satellite who play blues now,” he tells Variety. “And the older people I learned from is no longer with us. But when I was coming up, on the AM stations everybody’s records were being played. There was gospel, jazz and the blues, and everybody knew who the late Lightnin’ Hopkins was.”

However, according to Guy, blues pioneers aren't as well-known among the younger generation anymore. “They’re like, ‘Who is that? Who’s Muddy Waters?’ My grandkids don’t know nothing about the blues until they hit 21 and come up in the club while I’m there, and they say, ‘Granddad, I didn’t know you could do that!’

“So I’m 100% trying to support it so the next generation of white or Black kids can hear it and know more about the blues that was created way before the British type of (blues-rock) stuff come along and all the different types of music we have now,” he asserts with conviction. “Muddy Waters and BB King, I knew ’em before they passed away, and they told me, ‘Man, if you outlive me, just try to keep the blues alive.’

The triad of Guy, Waters, and King goes way back. When Guy moved to Chicago from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he didn’t think he was good enough to play guitar with Waters or even make a record. In fact, he was previously working as a custodian at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

“But I come up to Chicago, and the next thing I know, Muddy was asking me to play,” he related in a 2015 Guitar World interview. “And I found out that the money Muddy was making wasn’t much more than I was making working day jobs at LSU. But here’s Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson… and they were having so much fun just playing. And I learned that they were playing for the love of music, not the love of money.”

As for B.B. King, one of Guy's ultimate guitar heroes, he imparted valuable advice that the veteran blues guitarist still recalls to this day.

“B.B. King once told me that he’d never play the same thing twice,” he recalled in a 2023 Guitar World interview. “He said, ‘If you come to hear me play, you’ll never hear me play anything as I did before.’ So if you come and see a Buddy Guy show, you won’t hear me intentionally try and do anything note for note.”

Guy recently performed on the final date of the 2025 Experience Hendrix Tour at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta.

It's 1963, and the music world is changing faster than just about anyone can keep up with.

Folk singer Bob Dylan, walking down a road paved by Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and acoustic blues and country singers both well-known and anonymous, was suddenly a superstar, writing genuine #1 hits for himself and others.

Just a couple of years earlier, a compilation called King of the Delta Blues Singers had improbably made a legend out of Robert Johnson, a Mississippi Delta singer and guitarist who had died 25 years before.

Acoustic blues was not the specialty of Chess Records, a Chicago label that had over the previous decade played a hugely significant role in bringing the excitement and rawness of electric blues to the world in the form of pioneering recordings by the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.

But, seeing that there was success and prestige to be had with that older strain of blues, label head honcho Leonard Chess wanted a slice of the pie.

With that in mind, he tasked one of his biggest stars, Mississippi native Muddy Waters, with recording his first – and what would be his only – all-acoustic album.

Furthermore, Chess, knowing his Mississippi roots, wanted Waters to essentially find for him his own Robert Johnson – an overlooked Delta bluesman from the same era.

Chess may have been the head of the label, but ultimately, it was Waters' record, and he had other ideas. Enter the fiery young blues guitarist Buddy Guy, who Waters had discovered when the latter was barely out of his teens.

“Leonard told Muddy to go to Mississippi to find an old guy who really knew how to play [Delta blues],” Guy told Guitar World in a 1998 interview.

“Chess didn't want me around. But Muddy called me. That was one of the thrills of my life. Muddy sings like a Baptist preacher on those songs, doesn't he?”

Chess had known Guy for a number of years, and he wasn't a huge fan of his ultra-aggressive playing – his experiments with feedback, outrageous bends, and his desire to bring the raw power of his live show to the studio.

He was essentially the last player Chess wanted on what he envisioned as a spare album done the old-fashioned way – and he didn't hide his skepticism or anger about Waters' decision.

“Chess was cussin' when I came to the session with Muddy,” Guy recounted to Guitar World. “But when he heard me, Chess just sat there with his mouth open and then said, ‘Motherfucker, where did you learn that shit?’ I said, ‘Man, there's my teacher.’”

Satisfied that his young protégé had proven himself, Waters, according to Guy, kindly told his boss, “‘I told you I had the man to play this shit. Now get the fuck out of here.’”

Of course, Guy's high-wire take on the stylings of his blues guitar predecessors would go on to hugely inspire the likes of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and especially Jimi Hendrix, who Guy said once cancelled a gig to see him in concert.

“I would go into the Chess studio wanting to sound basically like Jimi Hendrix sounded years later, and they would tell me that I was crazy,” Guy told Guitar World in 1993. “All of the stuff that Jimi did – making noise, squeezing strings, feedback – which is acceptable today, wasn't acceptable at the time.”

It took the success of the blues-rock revolution of the late '60s (success, which, it's worth noting, completely eluded Guy himself at the time), for Chess to realize his misunderstanding of the blues guitar legend.

“When Leonard Chess found out about Hendrix, Beck, and Clapton, he told me to kick his ass,” Guy told Guitar World in 1993. “See, he realized he should have listened to me in the first place, because by that time those guys were selling millions.”

Pedal steel guitar virtuoso, composer, and improviser Susan Alcorn, who played an important role in broadening the horizons of the instrument beyond country, Hawaiian music, and traditional folk music, died in Baltimore, Maryland, on January 31 at the age of 71 due to natural causes.

Born on April 4, 1953, Alcorn was raised in a musical family, surrounded by the music of Beethoven, Brahms, Ella Fitzgerald, and Glenn Miller. One of her earliest musical memories was being taken to a symphony performance during her elementary school years. "That was the highlight of the year as I remember it. I loved hearing all those instruments live in the concert hall," she told Baker Artist.

At eight or nine, she took up the viola and later the cornet and the trumpet. Soundtracking these crucial years were the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Petula Clark, Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers, and rhythm and blues girl groups. Fast-forward to her move to Chicago, and an encounter with Muddy Waters changed the trajectory of her life forever.

“I remember how he played his slide guitar and how there was so much emotion and so much raw power all in the space of one single note, and in a way, that changed my life,” she explained. “I began playing bottle-neck guitar, then Hawaiian guitar, then dobro, then finally the pedal steel guitar. I guess Muddy Waters was my gateway drug.”

Alcorn soon started learning the pedal steel guitar but admitted it was a challenge since there were no teachers where she lived at the time, so she was largely self-taught. Later, when she moved to Houston, Texas, she took a few lessons from legendary jazz pedal steel player Maurice Anderson, who remained her mentor.

It was also in Houston that she learned how to play in a band, diving deep into the country and western swing scene and playing with a wide range of local musicians, which, all in all, helped her continue to hone her craft.

What Alcorn describes as a "musical watershed" happened in 1990, when she spent time – and eventually collaborated – with the composer and philosopher Pauline Oliveros, who introduced her to the Deep Listening approach – an alternative way of engaging with music, “free from preconceptions.”

Another moment that served as a catalyst was the 12 Minutes Max event at an art space in Houston. “I could do anything I wanted as long as it was no longer than… 12 minutes,” wrote Alcorn on her official website.

“I had never played solo before and was scared out of my wits. That night I walked onto the stage, sat at my steel guitar, looked the audience in the eye (that way, I thought, it would be more difficult to retreat into a world of my own), and when the moment felt right, I touched my picks to the strings and began to play, hopefully something that would connect with these people on a deep level as human beings.

“The result was a sense of intimacy with the space and the audience that I had never before experienced as a musician.”

Alcorn followed through with her solo ambitions and exploration of the instrument with her debut full-length album, Uma (2000) – a trajectory she continued with over a dozen albums. She was also an avid collaborator, particularly in improvisation-based works, working with a host of artists, including Eugene Chadbourne (banjoist, guitarist, and music critic), Jandek (the musical project of lo-fi folk singer Sterling Smith), and Mike Cooper (country blues, jazz, and experimental guitarist and singer-songwriter).

In 2017, Alcorn received the Baker Artist Award, and in 2018, the Instant Award in Improvised Music along with saxophonist Joe McPhee. Her final project, the In-Yu EP, came out in 2024, and she was reportedly in the process of recording a trio album with composer Mat Maneri and clarinetist Lori Freedman.

Writing about her lifelong passion, Alcorn eloquently summed it up: “I view the instrument I play, the pedal steel guitar, not as an object to be mastered, but as a partner with which to share with the listener a meaning, depth, and hopefully profound awareness of each fragile moment we’re together.”

It is hard to overstate the impact of the ‘60s British blues guitar scene, when a new generation of guitar heroes mined the original source of blues playing and put their own spin on it.

In doing so, they not only brought blues into the mainstream, calling attention to the original pioneers, but reconfigured popular culture, providing a launching pad for the big beasts of rock that would emerge in the decade that followed.

But this boom did not exist in a vacuum, and here we offer 9 essential albums that had an immeasurable impact on the scene and its players.

Robert Johnson – King Of The Delta Blues Singers (1961)

Released more than 20 years after his passing, Johnson’s small but extraordinary recorded output had a huge impact on the fledgling blues scene in Britain. The mystique surrounding the Johnson legend ticked all the boxes for a new generation of blues fans. Essential listening.

Standout track: Terraplane Blues

Muddy Waters – Live in 1958 (1993)

Although released decades later, this is the only known recording of Waters and the Chris Barber band from the groundbreaking tour of 1958 – also featuring Muddy’s regular pianist Otis Spann, an important bluesman in his own right. You can only imagine the effect this tour had on the young Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Eric Clapton who witnessed it.

Standout track: Hoochie Coochie Man

Big Bill Broonzy – The Bill Broonzy Story (1960)

Recorded over several sessions in 1957, this three-volume set showcases the intimate side of Broonzy that UK audiences would have heard when he became the first blues artist to tour there with Chris Barber. Although entirely acoustic, one can hear how he would have left a big impression on the music when it transitioned to electric.

Standout track: Joe Turner Blues

Chris Barber Jazz Band & Skiffle Group – New Orleans Joys (1955)

This 10-inch album epitomises the link between jazz, blues and skiffle that existed prior to the 1960s. It’s the album that features Lonnie Donegan’s versions of Rock Island Line and John Henry and its impact on the British blues boom cannot be overestimated.

Standout track: Rock Island Line

Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Gospel Train (1956)

Tharpe’s soulful bluesy gospel approach provided another key ingredient in the development of the 1950s and 60s blues revival that led to the more pop-oriented direction many of the UK blues bands took. That’s aside from her often ferocious guitar style!

Standout track: Up Above My Head…

Various Artists – The Original American Folk Blues Festival (1962)

Here’s an example of what happened once the blues scene had established itself to the point where entire festivals featuring US legends began touring Europe from the early 60s onwards.

This was the first time audiences outside the US could see the likes of T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf and a host of other pioneers on the same stage.

Standout track: Shake It Baby (John Lee Hooker)

The Rolling Stones – The Rolling Stones (1964)

This is the band responsible in many ways for bringing blues into the mainstream. This, the Stones’ debut album, paved the way for rock to develop. Quite simply, the rest of the 60s and early 70s blues rooted bands would have sounded different without it!

Standout track: Route 66

John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers – Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton (1966)

As hyperbolic as it may seem, it is often said that Blues Breakers is one of the most important albums ever recorded.

Also known as ‘The Beano Album’, this LP marks the crossroad between the initial blues craze and the beginnings of a heavier sound that paved the way for such heavyweights as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Free – among many others.

Standout track: Hideaway

Jimmy D Lane, the son of Chicago guitarist Jimmy Rogers, enjoyed his early induction into the blues.

“Watching him practice around the house, man, that did a thing for me,” he says. “It struck me very curiously, and it gave me the desire to do it. I would watch him and sneak his guitar out from under the bed to play it when he was gone.

“One of those times, I broke a string! I put it back in there thinking, ‘Oh, there’s six strings – he won’t miss that one.’ He told me later that he realized what happened and knew I was curious about it. He didn’t get on me; we laughed about it. He knew I wanted to learn.”

Despite growing up around Rogers, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Albert King, Lane was mostly self-taught.

“I never sat down with Pop,” he says. “I would watch him and listen to records to figure it out. I was trying to figure out what the hell I wanted to do. It wasn’t until I got out of the military that certain sounds started to catch my ear.”

Like many others, it wasn’t the blues that spurred him on, but Jimi Hendrix. “I had a set of headphones and a boombox. I remember Hey Joe came on. I’d heard it a million times – but this time, it sounded different. The only way I can describe it is how preachers know their calling.

“I only had $60 in my pocket, but I ran into a pawn shop in Chicago. I had to buy a guitar. I bought a Harmony – which a guy had carted in because he didn’t have any money – went back to the house and practiced until I figured it out.”

By the age of 28 in 1993, he was touring Europe, appearing on late-night TV and performing at the Chicago Blues Festival. Debut record Sir Real arrived in 1995, followed by 1997’s Long Gone. His dad and Hubert Sumlin appeared on 1998’s Legacy, and he performed for President Bill Clinton. Then in 2004 he hooked up with Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble for It’s Time.

Since then Lane has kept at it, balancing his father's legacy with perpetual low-key comparisons to Jimi Hendrix. “I got real serious about it,” Lane says. “It came over time. But I’ll tell you: when I knuckled down, I was really able to stretch out.”

Currently on tour, it’s been a long time since his last proper album. “There’s some work that may be coming up in the future,” he says. “I’ll try to put some things together and see what I come up with.”

Even though you're self-taught, with a father like Jimmy Rogers, you must have picked up a few tricks along the way.

“When I first started I would learn a word or a little phrase; then you get a sentence, and maybe put a couple sentences together. When you’re finished you’ve got a paragraph. That’s how I threw it together in my mind for the steps of learning to play.

“All these guys were coming over to have a drink and laugh with the old man. I would be there right in the middle of things, listening to everything that was going on with those guys. My ears were open for it because I was messing with my father’s guitar.”

How did being around blues legends like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Albert King impact how you approached the guitar?

“I didn't really know who these guys were. All my knowledge was made with my eyes – they were just friends of the old man. It was, ‘Oh, there’s Mr Junor… there’s Mr Albert.’ Or, ‘There’s Mr Wolf’ – who scared the hell out of me because he was so big and loud!

You saw them as people before you saw them as legendary artists.

“I didn’t look at them that way until I started playing and listening. That’s when I realized, ‘That's what he sounds like – that's what he’s doing.’”

Once you got serious about it, were you able to incorporate some of that into what you were doing?

“I tried my best to take all the things I heard and hone them with what I was doing to create a sound. To this day I don’t know if I created a sound – but I’ve tried.”

Once you got rolling in the ‘90s, you found yourself in the post-Stevie Ray Vaughan blues landscape, which saw artists like Buddy Guy and others find a second life. What was your perspective then?

“Stevie did pretty much the same thing I’ve been talking about. He listened to those guys – especially Albert King and Hubert Sumlin. He took their sound and created a sound much like Hendrix did back.

“There was a big soul revival in the ‘60s, with some great music that was a good step forward for black musicians. But blues had kind of died out in the era of my father; the money kind of died out. But in the ‘80s, with the Texas Flood album, Stevie busted things wide open. A lot of other musicians came on after that, like Robert Cray; and even Eric Clapton came back.”

How did you wind up playing for Bill Clinton?

“There was a convention or some type of speech here in Chicago, and the drummer I had at the time was doing the booking for the band. Somebody he knew said, ‘Hey, do you want to perform for the Clintons?’ They were having a little gathering at City Hall, and we did it.

“When we finished, Bill came up and introduced himself – with the Secret Service all around . He’s a saxophone player, so he was into music. We shook hands and I went to another gig.

“But a couple of weeks later, I got this manilla envelope in the mail from the White House. It was a letter from him thanking me for the performance and the music. That blew me away. It was fun. I could tell he really enjoyed it because he was bobbing his head to the tracks we did!”

Then in 1999 you found yourself in Montreux, Switzerland, with B.B. King.

“I’d played there with the Jimmy Rogers tribute the day before. I was due back in the States, and I got called up in the hotel room – ‘Hey, B.B. wants you to play,’ I had to rebook my return flight.

“It was a very exciting experience, and very humbling to be in the presence of a cat like B.B. King. He had a line of guitar players up there. We got up to jam for the encore, and we all went down the line, and he gave everybody a chance to solo.

“Gary Moore was there too – he played his thing and we jammed there. I was actually sitting next to Gary for that. But all those guys respected my father, which is a very beautiful thing, man.”

How did you end up recording It’s Time with Double Trouble?

“The label I was on at the time, APO, had something to do with that. I was visiting the director and we were thinking about the next project. They contacted Eddie Kramer, who was into it, and we said, ‘Okay, who do we want?’

“We thought about Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox. Billy was good to go, but Mitch's wife said, ‘No, he’s tired and he’s going to stay in England for a while.’ I said, ‘How about Double Trouble?’ I liked how Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon played together. We contacted them and they were available.”

“Man, it was a fun session. We got all kinds of other bad people; we went on down to Blue Heaven Studios and knocked that record out in about two weeks. I don’t think Tommy is playing anymore; he’s got some issues with his hand. But we had a blast making that record.”

What gear have you leaned on most along the way?

“A Fender Strat is my weapon of choice. I have a Vox amp because I like feeling of the tubes. You know that warm tone you get from tube amps – I like the Vox because the electronics are good and I can get the warmth.

“I’ve got a Boss Blues Driver pedal, and for a couple of songs I use a Jim Dunlop Rotovibe [chorus/vibrato]. I can switch from doing Chicago blues to urban blues and right into other stuff with that very easy setup.”

In 2013, you were inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame. Given that it’s your hometown, that must have been gratifying.

“If you’re gonna play Chicago blues, you have to go to the few people who created the sound. It’s a very deep sound, rhythmically and emotionally. It’s not just me, man – everybody that’s playing blues guitar should acknowledge that sound.

“Chicago blues is very influential, especially the circular guitar chords and leads that were played. I learned it from my pop. It’s certain rhythms and not getting in the way. If there’s a harmonica player, you don’t step on what he’s doing. If he’s doing solos, you get under him and play chords in certain fashions that feed emotion, timing and sounds.”

• For more information, head to Jimmy D. Lane.

There are few figures in blues history as notable as Muddy Waters. Born McKinley Morganfield in 1913, Muddy was cetral to the evolution of the genre, from its beginnings as the folk music of the southern states to the electrified Chicago sound that served as a bedrock for all later guitar-based music. 

Like many early blues artists, Muddy’s musical education came from church. Singing in Sunday service and emulating local musicians gave him a rich education and deep connection to the country-blues tradition. 

By his teens he was supporting his powerful voice with intricate blues guitar work and harmonica embellishments, but his career would really take off when he moved to Chicago in the early ’40s.

Arriving in the big city, Muddy realised he would need to amplify his guitar in order to be heard over the crowds of the music clubs. In doing so, he helped to develop the sound of electric guitar as we know it and secure its place at the forefront of popular music.

His music during these years was raw and emotive. The cranked amplifiers delivered a rugged, powerful tone that perfectly suited the music’s primal nature. The licks may be considered somewhat primitive when we listen with modern ears but then it was the dawn of an exciting style never heard before. Muddy and others were essentially inventing a language, and so the study of this source material is vital for any blues guitarist. 

Our solos in this lesson focus on Muddy’s early electrified sound, the first being a guitar slide piece in open G tuning (D-G-D-G-B-D). This tuning was traditional for many country blues slide players, and many of Muddy’s early recordings utilised it.

If it’s unfamiliar to you, we recommend spending a little time exploring the fretboard. You will notice that the second, third, and fourth strings remain the same as standard tuning, so familiar shapes will still work here.

The remaining strings are all tuned down a tone, so a little adjustment in your thinking will be required. Do not be deterred, as this tuning can give you access to an abundance of new language.

Our second study delivers more essential vocabulary, this time in standard tuning, as Muddy switched to this later on. The vibe of this is just as important as the notes, and capturing some of Muddy’s swagger is the hardest element of emulating his style.

He would push and pull rhythms and play heavily with dynamics, so aim to capture some of these details for added authenticity. Check out as much of Muddy’s music as possible, as it’s best to learn from the real deal. Just listen to Voodoo Chile, and you’ll hear that Jimi did, too! 

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 5, Bass 4, Middle 7, Treble 6, Reverb

Muddy was synonymous with his red Telecaster, but many of his early tracks were recorded with a Gretsch Synchromatic or a Gibson Les Paul. These were likely paired with a tweed Fender combo amp. Aim for an edge of breakup tone with plenty of mids and treble. You may need a little more gain than expected for slide, in order to allow the notes to sustain.

Study Piece 1. Slide guitar solo in open G

Our first study demonstrates Muddy’s open G slide guitar chops and showcases some fundamental moves for this style. Intonation is always key when it comes to slide guitar, so practise these licks slowly to ensure you are dead in tune. 

Fingerstyle is probably the best bet here, or pick and fingers, or perhaps thumbpick and fingers. But if you prefer to go the ‘pick only’ route, be careful of any unwanted strings ringing out.

Study Piece 2. Slow shuffle solo

We’re back in standard tuning for our second study which demonstrates Muddy’s vocabulary over a slow shuffle in E. Keeping the rhythm going is what’s important here, as the low strings provide an accompaniment for the higher-string melodies. 

If this is a challenge, work on each bar individually before you put it together. The style of this piece is foundational to so much of the blues that came later, so study it carefully and learn from its simple brilliance. 

Maybe it’s all the bending and vibrato, and the associated pain that comes with steel-string manipulation, but there is something deeper about the connection between the blues player and their guitar. 

The great blues players do something with those guitars; they take on a life of their own. Blues guitars are often named, as though a surrogate for a lover, past or present. 

Here we’re going to take a look at some of the most famous blues six-strings in history, and also suggest some reasonably priced options on today’s market for the next generation of players to tell their story on. That’s us, right?

1. Robert Johnson's circa-1926 Gibson L-1

We might imagine Robert Johnson’s life in sepia and monochrome but that’s an illusion sold by archive photography. His reality was lived in vivid colour as the Delta blues godfather breathed life into the art, mostly in juke joints but, thankfully for posterity, across two recording sessions too. 

He played a number of guitars but the 1920s Gibson L-1 flat-top – spruce topped, round-bottomed – is the one we remember.

2. Muddy Waters’ 1958 Fender Telecaster

Someone needed to take that sound pioneered by Johnson and the acoustic forebears of blues and electrify it. Enter Muddy Waters. Mississippi born, made in Chicago, Waters’ Telecaster (aka The Hoss) was his number one. 

Serial number: 026176, ash-bodied refinished red, upgraded with a six-saddle bridge and rosewood neck, it gave Waters some spike to work with. The Stones, Clapton et al were listening. 

3. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s circa-1963 Fender Strat Number One

Number one, aka ‘First Wife’, is the greatest guitar in Texas blues, recognisable for its engraved pickguard, three-colour sunburst, and a left-handed vibrato on a right-handed guitar. Bought at Ray Hennig’s Heart of Texas Music, Austin, Number One is a mongrel with a ’63 body, ’59 pickups ’62 neck, but it had guts.

4. Eric Clapton’s 1959 Gibson Les Paul ‘Beano Burst’

Eric Clapton used it to track Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton in 1966, and it’s named Beano because Slowhand is reading the Beano on the album cover. What makes this the Loch Ness Monster of Les Pauls is that it was stolen in ’66 and hasn’t been seen since. The late Peter Green said in 1999 it’d be worth £50 million. Where is it?

5. B.B. King’s Gibson ES-355 Lucille

There have been many Lucilles in B.B. King’s arsenal over the years, but they all share the same story: named after a woman two men were fighting over in a dancehall. The tale goes that they knocked over a barrel of burning fuel in the process and started a fire. 

King ran into it in order to save his beloved guitar and subsequently named it after the subject of the feud. Typically, Lucille was an ES-355, dressed in a tux, f-holes filled in, and a TP-6 bridge because intonation is everything.

6. Billy Gibbons’ 1959 Gibson Les Paul ‘Pearly Gates’

Another Holy Grail Les Paul, and one that ZZ Top’s whiskered master of ceremonies says is irreplaceable. Gibbons bought Pearly Gates in 1968 for $250, from a country player turned rancher whom he described as “a John Wayne guy”. A feature of every ZZ Top record since, it is one of the best-sounding Les Pauls ever made. 

7. The Greeny 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard

Not another ’59 Les Paul Standard? Yes, and how could we leave Greeny off this list? Owned by two blues greats, first Peter Green, from whom it takes its name, then Gary Moore, and now by Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, Greeny has the iconic out-of-phase tone and mismatched controls. 

8. Johnny Winter’s 1964 Gibson Firebird V

They say dogs look like their owners (or is it the other way round?) but what about guitarists and their instruments? There was something truly simpatico about Winter and his beat-down Polaris White Firebird V, bearing the scars of its removed maestro, the worn Firebird log on the pickguard, all the signs of a life lived hard. And then it had that voice, the perfect vehicle for Winter’s animalistic playing style. 

9. Albert King’s 1959 Gibson Flying V ‘Lucy’*

We’re putting an asterisk on which Lucy is considered Albert King’s main squeeze because, like his namesake B.B., he loved a few in his life, but the korina V from the first batch out the Gibson factory helped establish one of the most captivating presences in blues. Legendary luthier Dan Erlewine built King some custom Lucy V’s, replete with her name on an open-book style headstock. 

10. Albert Collins’ 1966 Custom Telecaster

The Iceman cometh! Now here’s a Telecaster to pin the audience to the back of their seats, which Albert Collins, the undisputed Master of the Telecaster, did on a nightly basis throughout his career. 

Famously, he’d tune his Tele to open F minor, using a capo to change the key, playing with his fingers through a dimed Fender Quad. With a Gibson PAF at the neck position, what else could anyone need from a guitar?

Armed with years of experience as a session bassist and arranger, John Paul Jones was the ultimate addition to Led Zeppelin, a rhythm and blues supergroup formed in 1968 by guitarist Jimmy Page, vocalist Robert Plant, and drummer John Bonham. Despite being overshadowed as a songwriter, Jones once penned a true Led Zeppelin classic while on a train ride home.

“I wrote Black Dog on a train,” said Jones in the February 08 issue of Bass Player. “My Dad taught me how to write musical notation without using manuscript paper – just with numbers and note values – and I wrote that riff on the back of a train ticket coming back from a rehearsal at Jimmy Page’s house.”

Like the earlier Good Times, Bad Times, Black Dog offers an insight into the rhythm section relationship that gave Led Zep their unforgettable groove. “It was originally all in 3/16 time,” Jones told Classic Rock, “but no one could keep up.” 

Bonham, in particular, struggled with the song’s shifting rhythms. “I told Bonzo he had to keep playing four-to-the-bar all the way through. If you go through enough 5/8s it arrives back on the beat.” 

According to biographer Dave Lewis, the call-and-response element of Plant's vocal was borrowed from Fleetwood Mac’s 1969 hit, Oh Well. Jones credited another source of inspiration. “There was a Muddy Waters song I was attracted to at the time. It was a rolling blues with a riff that never ended. I fancied writing something that did the same thing. Just when you think the riff is going to finish, it goes off somewhere else.”

In Led Zeppelin, Jones would often double guitar riffs on the bass. This filled out the sound, something he had become very used to doing. “I think you have to make a decision to support the guitar. Sometimes you can be really sparse and that will really highlight what the guitar’s doing. Or you can do a repeated pattern and build up intensity. In Black Dog I would leave a lot of space and Page could come out in those spaces. You’ve got to look at the whole picture.”

As this point in his career, Jones was predominantly playing fingerstyle, but he was equally adept at using a pick. “My preference is always to play fingerstyle, but I often had to play with a pick in the session days, so I got quite used to it. I can play Black Dog with my fingers, but it just sounded better with a pick. It just gives you different phrasing, and a more metallic, guitar sound. I didn’t see any reason not to swap one for another if the occasion demanded it.”

Up until the mid-70s Jones was using a 1961 Fender Jazz Bass. He still occasionally uses this instrument today, but it was eventually retired from touring in 1975. Since then, John has favoured Manson instruments. 

Led Zeppelin IV is available to buy or stream.

Having played sideman to titans of the blues such as Junior Wells, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters and Magic Slim, when it comes to the blues, you could say that John Primer has seen it all.

Now, at the age of 78, Primer himself is not only an elder statesman within the genre, but a pillar holding the blues up. Having played a part in dozens of records of late, it's Primer's ongoing solo career that has taken center stage, garnering the veteran bringer of soul long overdue recognition.

When asked what the late-career success of his latest record, Hard Times, means to him, Primer replied, "Oh, man, I can't tell you how good I feel about it. I'm always excited about getting a new CD out there, but this one is that much sweeter. I mean, it ain't gonna win a Grammy or anything, but hey, that's all right. I feel like the blues is always an afterthought for people – it's always been that way."

In an age where debates constantly sprout up regarding the validity of awards shows that sometimes ignore old-guard genres such as the blues, leaving them unrecognized, indeed, it's refreshing to see Primer getting his due.

To that end, Primer offered his thoughts on the matter: "For Hard Times to be recognized by the Blues Foundation, to me, that's something right there. I ain't counting on any Grammy, no way, but I'll take the three [Blues Music] awards I've been nominated for [Album of the Year, Best Traditional Artist, and Best Male Traditional Blues Artist]. 

"It's a sad thing, though – people these days don't know or maybe just don't want to hear the real thing when it crops up. And when it comes to the blues, I am the real deal, I can tell you that."

As he approaches 80 years of age, like many of the greats who inspired him as he was coming up, Primer is forever young. Still inspired by the same ideals which cropped up as a youngster and unrelenting in his approach and simple setup, Primer appears poised to continue his late-career surge.

Prideful as he looks ahead, John Primer dialed in with Guitar World to discuss his early musings on guitars, his lifelong love of the blues, sharing the stage with Muddy Waters, and the merits of cheap guitars and pawnshop amps.

What first attracted you to the guitar?

"When I was a little kid, we lived on a little street along an old gravel road, and there would be guys coming down the road with guitars in their hands, and I took one look and knew I loved it. And then, later, I'd go over to my grandmother's house down in Mississippi, and my cousin would be there, and he'd have a guitar, too. We'd be there every Sunday morning, and I'd watch him play his guitar and sing the blues. That was what inspired me the most and what got me into the blues."

What pushed you to make the blues your life's work?

"When I was a kid, the blues was all I knew. It's what we lived, what we sang about, and what we listened to. For us, that was real – it wasn't just stories. Well, it was stories to others, but for us, it was our stories. And there were always blues records playing in the house – we'd spend hours each day playing old 45s and 78s, and I think all that rubbed off on me, too. I remember hearing that music and being so inspired by the guys on those records.

"You had Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and all these old guys, and I got really into all of it. That ended up inspiring me to play the blues because, again, that was all I knew and all I ever heard. There wasn't any other way for me. When it's a way of life for you, and it's all you've ever known, it becomes obvious that you're gonna do that, too. Even though I ended up studying other types of music, I guess I was just born to play the blues."

Describe your approach. What comes first, the lyrics or the guitar?

"For me, the lyrics always come first. With me being a guitar player, you might think it's the other way around, but it's not. I'll go through something word for word and write each thing down until I finish it, and that's when I add my guitar. I do it the old-fashioned way, though, I come in with a pencil and paper, and as things come to my mind, I write them down.

"People have to remember that most of the best blues songs were written back in the day, and that's how I do it. So, for me, the lyrics end up inspiring the guitar that I add in later. All it takes is one word to come to my mind for me to want to make a song out of that. Blues is easy – when you make it complicated, you're screwing it up."

From there, how do you craft your guitar parts?

"Here's the thing – I don't write anything. None of it is pre-planned, thought out, or whatever it is that people do. All my guitar parts come from my mind, meaning as they come to me, I feel them and make them real. I don't know anything about writing or reading music, so I have to go with what I think – that's what I rely on. And so, if I ain't feeling behind it, and it's not something I want to keep and take with me, then it's no good. 

"There's something to that, the idea that you don't need to be writing things down and overthinking them. Sometimes, it's better just to play, let things come out, and see if there's something there when you're done. That's what I do."

You're known as a great slide player. How did you develop your technique?

"After I moved to Chicago, I played regular guitar, and I wasn't really messing with the slide at all. And I'd see these guys playing slide, and I was so impressed, and while I tried my best, I could never get the hang of it. So, around 1974 I got a job in a club called Theresa's Lounge backing up Junior Wells, and I remember that all the old blues guys would come down and hang out. 

"Muddy Waters would come in there and play with Sammy Long, who could play some great slide, and that inspired me to keep trying to play slide, how to hold the slide, and all that. What I learned was a lot of people held the slide over their whole finger, but some only had the slide down to the bend of the finger joint. The other thing I learned was how to deaden the strings and to tune my guitar to open D, all of which were important to me picking it up."

You played with Muddy Waters later in his life. How important was Muddy to your development?

"Before Muddy, I played with Willie Dixon, so I was prepared to play with Muddy. I learned a lot working with Willie, but most of all, I learned what it meant to really feel the 12-bar blues. But Muddy was very important to me, and when I got to work with him, man, it was a dream come true. When I was a little kid growing up down South, I'd be holding my guitar and dreaming of working with Muddy. So, the idea that I could actually work with him was crazy to me."

Can you recount how you officially joined Muddy's band?

"Like I said, being sideman to Willie in late '79 helped a lot, but being with Muddy was a whole different thing. I had only been in Willie's band for maybe six months, and we were playing in Mexico City, and that's where Muddy heard me play, which would be around 1980. 

"After that show, Muddy asked Willie about me and said, 'Listen, my whole band's just quit. Who was that young man you've got playing up there with you?' Well, Willie said, 'Ah, that's John Primer. Yeah, he's pretty good, he can play a thing or two.'

"I guess Muddy must have liked what he heard 'cause he said to Willie, 'Well, that man sure knows my music. My band quit, and I'd like to have him in my band.' Willie gave Muddy his blessing, and not too long after, Muddy asked me to be in his band. 

"I didn't even think about it – I said, 'Sure, I'm in. Tell me where and when,' and we jumped right on tour. I was blown away, and to this day, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life to play with my number one influence. Muddy never messed around – there were no funny changes, it was all business, and I loved every minute of it."

What did you learn while playing with Magic Slim?

"What was great about Slim is he let me play the way I played. I worked with him for 13 years, and he made it clear that the reason I was in his band in the first place was that he liked how I played the guitar. I used to open the shows for him and do my own stuff, and then we'd do the Magic Slim set after that. Magic Slim was never selfish on stage, and he let me play a lot of solos and had no problem giving me the spotlight. 

"I mean, sometimes I didn't want to play those solos, but I had to because Slim was the boss. I would get angry sometimes 'cause I didn't want to play those solos – I'd never let him know it – but I realized that the reason why he was making me play those solos was that he not only respected me, but he was teaching me something.

"So, I took it as a chance to learn and get more comfortable taking the lead. I had no choice, I had to do it, but it ended up being a good thing for me, and I'm better for it. And I'll say this about Slim, he never got angry at me over anything – he treated me really well."

What's the secret behind your guitar tone?

"I keep things really simple – I don't mess around. I like a clear tone with no distortion or anything like that. I don't like distortion – it ruins the song. I like clear sounds with nothing else involved. 

"If you go back and listen to guys like B.B. King and Muddy Waters, they had clear tones and didn't mess around with anything. They kept it simple. My tone was developed when I was playing rhythm and slide, and I never messed with it beyond that. 

"When I played with Muddy, he set my amp tone up for me, and there's a little – and I mean a little – reverb there, but that's it. I use the same settings he gave me back in the mid-'70s when he came into the club. He gave me that, and who am I to change the tone that Muddy Waters gave me? I don't try to be him – I do it my way – but I take what he gave me seriously. That's why I'll never change my tone."

What combination of amps are you using these days?

"Back in the day, I used a whole lot of off-brand amps, stuff that I can't even remember the name of. I've still got a 1965 Fender Twin that I got from Junior Wells in the mid-'70s. I still have that one he used, but I've got new ones, too. 

"I like to use my '65 reissue to keep the old one safe. I've also got a Fender 1000 with 12" speakers, which sounds just like the Fender Twin. I got that amp for $40 in a pawn shop years ago, and it's served me well. I've had that for maybe five or six years and used it all over. I got a great amp for nothing, and it's light enough for me to pick it up and go."

You've been known to use Epiphone guitars. What goes into that choice?

"I've loved Epiphone for a long time, and I'm still using the Epiphone. I tried Strats early on, but I never could get comfortable or figure out how to play properly with them. So, I've got my Epiphone Les Paul, but I also recently – over the pandemic – got an Epiphone semi-hollow guitar. 

"I've found that while it's a simple guitar, it still adds a little bit more edge to the music than the Epiphone Les Paul. I found that it has a different tone, and it kind of reminds me of the guitar that B.B. King used, which is never a bad thing.

"It's like B.B. King says, if you wanna get rich, you gotta play a Gibson – and here I am playing these cheap guitars all these years [Laughs]. At this point, though, I don't care about getting rich: I'm doing what I love, and I'm happy playing music with my cheap guitars. I don't need a lot of knobs, and I don't like to mess with settings and changing things.

"Epiphone are damn good guitars – to me, it doesn't matter how much they cost. It ain't about the guitar; it's about the person playing it."

For a young player just starting, what's the secret to playing the blues?

"Ah, man, you just gotta go at it with everything you got. Ask yourself, 'What am I feeling right now?' and then go from there. The way I see it, there ain't anything that can't be solved with a guitar. But if you want to play the blues and get it out, you've got to be angry and take that anger out on your guitar. 

"If you wanna play good blues, you've got to be mad, squeezing that neck as hard as you can and gritting your teeth like hell. But don't go gettin' too deep, even if you're dealing with some heavy feelings, just let it go and go at it.

"It's about the feeling, and if you try and get too worried about getting a certain sound or whatever, you're gonna struggle. So, the best thing to do is not overthink it – take the anger out when playing the guitar and feel it. Also, don't get ahead of yourself, and if it comes out bad, try again, because real blues ain't perfect. 

"The blues don't work that way; real blues is felt, it's not a particular thing. So, keep it real, and try to keep it solid as you can. If you do that, you'll be feelin' all right."

• Hard Times is out now via Blues House Productions.

Chicago bluesman John Primer earned his musical education the hard way, playing long sets at blues clubs on the city’s South Side up to seven nights a week. But that training helped him earn plum gigs with legends Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters.

Not long after joining Dixon’s band in 1979, Primer traveled with them to Mexico City, where Waters took a shine to his playing. “He asked Willie, ‘Who’s that young man playing your guitar? Where’d you get him?’ ‘Oh, he works at Theresa’s Lounge.’ He said, ‘That man sure knows my music.’”

Waters was right on the money – Primer had learned his early acoustic music, and later his electric blues style from the 1971 album Live (At Mr. Kelly’s). Like Waters, he had moved up from Mississippi, where he had lived on a sharecropping farm until age 18. When Waters’ band quit in 1981, the Hoochie Coochie Man tracked down Primer at Theresa’s and offered him the lead guitar spot. 

Primer accepted in time to participate in the famed gig where the Rolling Stones backed Waters, immortalized on Live at the Checkerboard Lounge, Chicago 1981.

“Everybody was tore up that night – even Muddy was feeling good,” Primer says. “Keith Richards passed me a cigarette. I don’t even smoke. I should have kept that cigarette.” Richards and Ronnie Wood watched Primer and followed his lead, which gave Primer a thrill. He played with Waters until his untimely death in 1983 and started his own solo career in 1991 with Poor Man’s Blues.

Hard Times, Primer’s latest solo studio album, is informed by decades spent woodshedding his guitar licks with the masters and leading his own band. Echoing the playing traditions of Elmore James, B.B. King and Luther Allison, Primer rips through roadhouse blues on Don’t Wait Too Long and Chicago, swings on Tough Times and All Alone, and leans into the country blues of his early years on the title track. Ever the purist, he does it all without the aid of effects.

“I learned how to play blues on my own, and I didn’t have no foot pedals,” he says. “I tried the Cry Baby wah-wah pedal [and a] phase shifter, [but] the blues guys said, ‘Hey, you throw that thing in the garbage and go somewhere and jam and get your sound.’ [Now], a lot of [players] use it for playing blues – I guess to make it sound different – but when they go to their wah-wah pedals, it’s all rock ’n’ roll.”

• Hard Times is out now via Blues House Productions.

In this lesson, I’m exploring soloing approaches to the Muddy Waters blues classic, Rollin’ Stone. The song is played in the key of E, and, true to the style of acoustic Delta blues, as well as electric Chicago blues, many licks are played within the first few frets and incorporate open strings.

Ample evidence of this is heard in the acoustic playing of Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy and Lightning Hopkins, as well as the electric playing of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Freddie King, Magic Sam and many others.

When utilizing the open strings for solo-type licks in the key of E, most often these licks are based on the E minor pentatonic (E, G, A, B, D), the E blues scale (E, G, A, Bb, B, D) or slight variations on either that will also include the major 3rd, G#, and the major 6th, C#, referencing the E Mixolydian mode (E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D). 

“Modern” blues/rock guitarists like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Johnny Winter and Jimmy Page learned the licks of the first-generation blues masters and ramped them up to new levels of speed and intensity. This approach was explored further by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Joe Bonamassa and every guitarist that plays in a blues/rock style.

There is a vast array of standard licks based on the E blues scale that utilize open strings. FIGURE 1 illustrates a typical solo-type phrase that moves quickly across all six strings in a descending manner, built from a combination of notes played at the 2nd and 3rd frets that alternate with the open strings.

Phrases like this can be played quickly via the use of bends, hammer-ons, pull-offs and slides. Jimi Hendrix blazed new trails with licks like this on Voodoo Child (Slight Return), as did Stevie Ray Vaughan with Scuttle Buttin’. 

Let’s break the phrase down to its key components. FIGURE 2 illustrates the opening five-note lick, which starts with a half-step bend on the G string’s 3rd fret, followed by the open B and high E strings and then a pull-off from D, on the B string’s 3rd fret, to the open string. “Cycle” this one-beat shape by playing it repeatedly in sequence.

FIGURE 3 builds on the idea by adding melodic phrases on the top two strings. Alternating in this way between the open high E and fretted G and F# notes is something one will find in the playing of T-Bone Walker (though, in T-Bone’s case, it is usually done as all fretted notes in the key of G).

In FIGURE 4, F and F# at the 1st and 2nd frets are played in the place of F# and G, a technique popularized by Stevie Ray Vaughan. FIGURE 5 offers yet another twist on this type of soloing approach.

The best way to work these phrases into your soloing is to play through them slowly and methodically. FIGURES 6-9 focus on the individual elements, or “puzzle pieces,”’ that you can put together in pretty much any way you please.

Here, we're looking at the basic elements that make up Muddy Waters’ rhythm guitar playing and approach to single-note lines and solos on his blues classic, Rollin’ Stone. One essential element is his inclusion of open-string drones. 

On guitar, a drone is most often played as an open string that is sounded and allowed to ring along with the performance of an additional melodic line. 

One of the reasons the key of E is used so often in blues guitar music is that both the open low and high E strings can conveniently be used as drones in order to fill out the sound while also serving to emphasize the tonic, or home key, of E. Let’s look at some examples.

In Figure 1, I fingerpick the open high E string with my ring finger while playing, on the lower strings, an improvised melody based on the E minor scale pentatonic (E, G, A, B, D). 

In bar 1, I attain unison high E notes by hammering-on from D to E on the B string while additionally fingerpicking the open high E. In bar 2, I drop this idea down an octave as I hammer-on from the open D string to E at the 2nd fret while fingerpicking the open high E string. 

This technique can easily be applied to both melodies and solo ideas. In Figure 2, the song’s melody is approximated and sounded on the lower strings with the open high E drone added to the majority of the melodic line. 

Figure 3 presents another approach to a vocal-like melody, this time filled out with the inclusion of both the open B and high E strings.

Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Winter both recorded fantastic versions of Rollin’ Stone, dubbed, Catfish Blues by both of them, and – of course – both Jimi and Johnny added a barrage of brilliant musical ideas to the basic Muddy template. 

For example, Jimi would often craft phrases along the lines of Figure 4, repeatedly sliding up to B and D on the G and B strings while adding the open high E-string drone and additionally developing more complex rhythmic syncopations along the way, such as those in bar 3.

During the “chorus” of Rollin’ Stone, Muddy adds an unusual syncopation to his vocal melody, which he mimics on the guitar. Figure 5 exemplifies this type of phrasing.

You’ll find many more twists on this stylistic approach to blues guitar in the playing of other essential artists like Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker and Robert Johnson, all of whom were huge influences on Jimi and Johnny, as well as every blues and blues-rock guitarist that followed and helped to develop and push the genre forward.

All of the “first generation” blues guitar giants will continue to inspire for generations to come, so be sure to listen to them all, as every recording illuminates what blues guitar is all about.

Muddy Waters is widely revered as being one of the most important musical figures of all time and the “father of modern Chicago blues.” His great many recordings, spanning from 1941 to 1982, are among the most important and influential of all time. 

His 1948 single for Chess Records, Rollin’ Stone, set the template for many of his hit records to follow. In the early ’60s, certain young Englishmen joined forces based on their love of Chess Records, blues and rock and roll to form a band, taking their name from this early Muddy Waters hit, dubbing themselves the Rolling Stones, doing their part to ignite the soon-to-come British Blues explosion. 

By the end of the ’60s, guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Johnny Winter had used the influence of Waters to forge completely new, trailblazing sounds in modern music.

A great place to start exploring Muddy’s signature guitar style is this track, Rollin’ Stone. The song is built around a simple riff in E, based on the E minor pentatonic scale (E, G, A, B, D). As shown in Figure 1, the riff is played in 128 meter, with a pickup of a slightly bent low G note on the 6th string’s 3rd fret followed by E, on the 2nd fret of the 4th string.

On beat two of bar 1, an A note on the G string’s 2nd fret is bent up a whole step and released, followed by a pull-off to the open G string and a fretted E note. As shown in bars 2 and 3, this riff repeats with slight variations, as open strings and other rhythmic accents are added.

The bent-and-released A note serves as the “hook” in the lick, and Muddy would always place it on beat 2 as the song progresses. You’ll hear the very same thing happening in Jimi Hendrix’s classic song Voodoo Child (Slight Return), which was directly influenced by this Muddy Waters recording.

This type of slow 128 blues in the key of E is great for devising improvised ideas, as evidenced by the many great versions of Voodoo Child (Slight Return) recorded by both Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. 

Muddy himself had a “part two” to Rollin’ Stone, which he called Still a Fool, and both Hendrix and Winter took the liberties to combine Rollin’ Stone and Still a Fool into a song that they both called “Catfish Blues.” Be sure to check out these incredible recordings!

In Figure 2, I build off of the original lick by moving through different ideas based on the E blues scale (E, G, A, Bb, B, D). A simple twist used by Muddy, as well as Jimi, on songs like Machine Gun, is to hammer on E and G# together, as in Figures 3 and 4. 

Before moving into more soloing approaches, let’s lay down a basic guitar accompaniment for the tune’s verse sections.

As shown in Figure 5, the phrase introduced in Figure 1 lays the foundation, with slight variations added that support the vocal melody. 

The Muddy Waters MOJO Museum - a project that seeks to turn the blues legend's former Chicago house into a community cultural center - has been given a $50,000 grant to begin renovations through the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Spearheaded by Waters' great-granddaughter Chandra Cooper, the community center will include a museum dedicated to Muddy Waters and the blues, a recording studio, a small venue, and a community garden.

Waters purchased the house on 4339 S. Lake Park Avenue in the North Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago in 1954, living there for 20 years and using the space primarily for rehearsal. The property was declared unsafe by the Department of Buildings in 2013, but Cooper says the grant will give the project a much-needed boost.

“It was so significant to get this grant money from the trust, because it’s really saving this house from any more deterioration,” she told the Hyde Park Herald. The project is expected to take around two years to complete.

For more information, or to make a donation to the project, head to the MOJO Museum's website.

Although it's always been relatively uncommon, legendary old-school blues musicians have let their voices and/or images be used to sell products in ads and commercials.

There's that semi-famous 1993 John Lee Hooker ad for Lee Jeans, for instance!

Still, this new find is a total surprise. It's a clip of Muddy Waters doing a radio ad for Dr. Pepper.

According to the info posted along with the clip on YouTube, this is one of several audio ads from an series composed by Randy Newman for Dr. Pepper's radio campaign in the late Sixties or early Seventies.

Although Muddy is clearly singing Newman's Dr. Pepper-centric lyrics, It sounds like he's making up the melody as he goes along—as any great blues musician would do!

You can check out the clip below.

A new Rory Gallagher career-spanning collection, Blues, will be released May 31 via Chess/Ume. Drawn from the vaults of the Gallagher estate's tape archive, the package presents rare and unreleased recordings of Gallagher playing his favorite blues material. Ranging from previously unreleased tracks to special guest sessions with legendary blues artists (Muddy Waters, Albert King) and lost radio sessions, Blues uncovers Rory's love of the blues throughout his solo career, from 1971 through to 1994.

Blues will be released as a 16-track CD and digital edition; 2-LP vinyl and limited edition 2-LP blue vinyl editions; and a deluxe 36-track 3-CD and digital edition. The Deluxe Edition boasts 90 percent unreleased material and features performances with legends such as Muddy Waters, Albert King, Jack Bruce, Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber. The 3-CD Deluxe Edition also includes an extensive booklet with previously unseen pictures of Gallagher, plus a new essay by writer Jas Obrecht. 

Blues is available for pre-order here. You can check out the full track list below.

Rory Gallagher: Blues (3-CD deluxe edition):

DISC 1: Electric Blues
Don’t Start Me Talkin (Unreleased track from the Jinx album sessions 1982)
Nothin’ But the Devil (Unreleased track from the Against The Grain album sessions 1975)
Tore Down (Unreleased track from the Blueprint album sessions 1973)
Off the Handle (Unreleased session Paul Jones Show BBC Radio 1986)
I Could’ve Had Religion (Unreleased WNCR Cleveland radio session from 1972)
As the Crow Flies (Unreleased track from Tattoo album sessions 1973)
A Million Miles Away (Unreleased BBC Radio 1 Session 1973)
Should’ve Learnt My Lesson (Outtake from Deuce album sessions 1971)
Leaving Town Blues (Tribute track from Peter Green Rattlesnake Guitar 1994)
Drop Down Baby (Rory guest guitar on Lonnie Donegan’s Puttin’ On the Style album 1978)
I’m Ready (Guest guitarist on Muddy Waters London Sessions album 1971)
Bullfrog Blues (Unreleased WNCR Cleveland radio session from 1972)

DISC 2: Acoustic Blues
Who’s That Coming (Acoustic outtake from Tattoo album sessions 1973)
Should’ve Learnt My Lesson (Acoustic outtake from Deuce album sessions 1971)
Prison Blues (Unreleased track from Blueprint album sessions 1973)
Secret Agent (Unreleased acoustic version from RTE Irish TV 1976)
Blow Wind Blow (Unreleased WNCR Cleveland radio session from 1972)
Bankers Blues (Outtake from the Blueprint album sessions 1973)
Whole Lot of People (Acoustic outtake from Deuce album sessions 1971)
Loanshark Blues (Unreleased acoustic version from German TV 1987)
Pistol Slapper Blues (Unreleased acoustic version from Irish TV 1976)
Can’t Be Satisfied (Unreleased Radio FFN session from 1992)
Want Ad Blues (Unreleased RTE Radio Two Dave Fanning session 1988)

Walkin’ Blues’ (Unreleased acoustic version from RTE Irish TV 1987)

DISC 3: Live Blues
When My Baby She Left Me (Unreleased track from Glasgow Apollo concert 1982)
Nothin’ But the Devil (Unreleased track from Glasgow Apollo concert 1982)
What in the World (Unreleased track from Glasgow Apollo concert 1982)
I Wonder Who (Unreleased live track from late 1980s)
Messin’ With the Kid (Unreleased track from Sheffield City Hall concert 1977)
Tore Down (Unreleased track from Newcastle City Hall concert 1977)
Garbage Man Blues (Unreleased track from Sheffield City Hall concert 1977)
All Around Man (Unreleased track from BBC OGWT Special 1976)
Born Under a Bad Sign (Unreleased track from Rockpalast 1991 w/ Jack Bruce)
You Upset Me (Unreleased guest performance from Albert King album Live 1975)
Comin’ Home Baby (Unreleased track from 1989 concert with Chris Barber Band)
Rory Talking Blues (Interview track of Rory talking about the blues)

If Muddy Waters were an actual god—instead of just a blues god—he would've turned 105 years old today, April 4, 2018. Unfortunately, however, the legendary bluesman, who his mother knew as McKinley Morganfield, died April 30, 1983, in Westmont, Illinois.

Waters, the father of modern Chicago blues, was a major inspiration to several generations of musicians—including most of the key players in the British blues explosion of the Sixties. He also helped define blues for the latter part of the 20th century—an impact felt in a host of other genres including rock, R&B, folk and country.

We’ve decided to celebrate his birthday by gathering up what we feel are 10 of the finest covers of his songs by a host of artists. You'll notice Eric Clapton's guitar work appears twice in the list. Hey, I like Clapton.

If you'd like to recommend another song or two, please do! I don't mind making this a "Top 12" list. UPDATE: Johnny Winter's version of "Rock Me Baby" has grabbed the Number 11 spot.

Led Zeppelin, "You Shook Me"

The Allman Brothers Band, "Trouble No More"

Humble Pie, “Rollin’ Stone”

New York Dolls, “Hoochie Coochie Man”

The Yardbirds, "Good Morning Little School Girl"

The Animals, "Louisiana Blues"

The Black Crowes, "Champagne and Reefer"

The Rolling Stones, "I Just Want to Make Love to You"

Eric Clapton, "Blow Wind Blow"

The Doors, "Close to You"

Johnny Winter, "Rock Me Baby"

Billy Gibbons has released the official lyric video for his version of Muddy Waters’ "Standing Around Crying," from his upcoming second solo effort, The Big Bad Blues, due out September 21 via Concord Records. The song is the second track to be issued from the record, following the release of Gibbons’ take on another Waters classic, “Rollin’ and Tumblin’ ” in July.

Gibbons spoke to Ultimate Classic Rock, who premiered “Standing Around Crying,” about the song’s origins:

“[Waters] first recorded 'Standing Around Crying' in 1952 and Chess released it first on 78 RPM so that’s really going a ways back,” Gibbons said. “The song is, on a certain level, a bridge between the rural blues of his early days in the Mississippi Delta and the electric blues of his Chicago reign. James Harmon, in tribute to the original, did a great job channeling Junior Wells' harmonica tone as this was recorded just as Little Walter left Muddy’s band and Junior came in to replace him for a short time."

The Big Bad Blues follows Gibbons’ first solo album, 2015’s Afro-Cuban-flavored Perfectamundo.

“We successfully made our way through those uncharted waters with the Cubano flavor of Perfectamundo and completed the journey,” Gibbons said in a statement. “The shift back to the blues is a natural. It’s something which our followers can enjoy with the satisfaction of experiencing the roots tradition and, at the same time, feeling the richness of stretching the art form.”

Noting the blues' lasting influence on his guitar sound, he said “There’s something very primordial within the art form. Nobody gets away from the infectious allure of those straight-ahead licks!”

The Big Bad Blues features Joe Hardy on bass, former Guns N' Roses drummer Matt Sorum behind the kit, Austin Hanks on guitar and James Harman—plus Gibbons himself—on harmonica.

The Big Bad Blues is available for preorder right here.

Track listing (all songs by Billy F Gibbons except where noted):

01. Missin' Yo' Kissin' (Gilly Stillwater) 
02. My Baby She Rocks 
03. Second Line 
04. Standing Around Crying (Muddy Waters) 
05. Let The Left Hand Know… 
06. Bring It To Jerome (Jerome Green) 
07. That's What She Said 
08. Mo' Slower Blues 
09. Hollywood 151 
10. Rollin' And Tumblin' (Muddy Waters) 
11. Crackin' Up (Bo Diddley)

Last month, it was announced that a new Jimi Hendrix album, Both Sides of the Sky, would be released in March. The album—which features 10 previously unreleased tracks—will complete a trilogy of posthumous studio releases that began with 2010's Valleys of Neptune and continued with 2013's People, Hell and Angels.

Today, the first single from the album, Hendrix's recording of Muddy Waters' "Mannish Boy," has been released. You can hear it above.

The track is incredibly significant in Hendrix's history, as it was recorded on April 22, 1969, with Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums. This trio, of course, came to be known as the Band of Gypsys, and "Mannish Boy" is a relic from the trio's first ever recording session.

Both Sides of the Sky was produced by Janie Hendrix, John McDermott and Eddie Kramer, who served as the recording engineer on every album Hendrix made during the his lifetime.

"He wanted to keep it light," Kramer said to Rolling Stone of the playful cover. "He'd also do it to change it up a bit and inevitably those lines would work themselves into songs, and that's Jimi's sly humor."

You can check out the tracklist of Both Sides of the Sky below, and preorder the album here.

Both Sides of the Sky tracklist:

1) Mannish Boy*

2) Lover Man*

3) Hear My Train A Comin’*

4) Stepping Stone*

5) $20 Fine*+

6) Power Of Soul^

7) Jungle*

8) Things I Used to Do#

9) Georgia Blues++

10) Sweet Angel*

11) Woodstock*+

12) Send My Love To Linda*

13) Cherokee Mist*

*Previously unreleased

^ Previously unavailable extended version

+Featuring Stephen Stills

#Featuring Johnny Winter

++Featuring Lonnie Youngblood

There may be no more an enduring sound that has spanned the long, diverse history of popular music than the blues shuffle.

Born from the boogie-woogie sounds of jazz piano in the very early 20th century, the swinging shuffle groove is built from an insistent and repetitive forward-leaning rhythm that is generally written in 12/8 meter—wherein four consecutive beats are each subdivided into three evenly spaced eighth notes—and comprises a repeating quarter-note/eighth-note rhythm that sounds like “da—da, da—da, da—da, da—da.”

In this edition of In Deep, we’ll unravel the guitar artistry of three masters of the blues shuffle: Chicago’s Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters, and Texas’ Lightnin’ Hopkins. The first blues boogie/shuffle to become popular was “Pine Top’s Boogie,” released in 1929 by pianist Pine Top Smith.

By the mid Thirties, the boogie rhythm had been adapted to many different styles of music, including the swinging big-band jazz of Benny Goodman, the jump blues of Louis Jordan, hillbilly music and country-and-western swing. But the shuffle rhythm also has origins in the late Twenties recordings of such seminal Delta blues figures as Charlie Patton, Willie Brown and Tommy Johnson.

Delta blues pioneer Robert Johnson recorded the classic blues shuffles “Dust My Broom” and “Sweet Home Chicago” in 1936, and shortly thereafter, essential artists such as Son House, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, John Lee Hooker and Lightnin’ Hopkins developed blues music, and the intricacies of the shuffle rhythm, to a fine art form.

Let’s begin with the great Chicago bluesman Jimmy Reed, who penned blues shuffle classics like “Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby,” “You Don’t Have to Go,” “Bright Lights, Big City,” “Baby What You Want Me to Do” and many others.

To say that Reed’s songs have been influential would be a huge understatement. It’s impossible to imagine the blues guitar lexicon without his influential playing style and well-loved, oft-covered songs. Reed often performed with guitarist Eddie Taylor, and the manner in which they played complementary chordal and single-note melodic parts together laid the groundwork for the two-guitar approach later expounded upon in the blues rock of the Yardbirds’ Chris Dreja and Eric Clapton (and, later, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page), and the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards and Brian Jones (or Jones’ successors Mick Taylor or Ron Wood).

Richards refers to the intertwined sound of the complementary guitars in the Rolling Stones music as, “the fine art of weaving.” Employing a thumb pick and his bare fingers, Reed would use his thumb to lay down driving rhythms on the lower strings while fingerpicking melodic lines on the higher strings.

FIGURE 1 illustrates a rhythm part along the lines of “Baby, What You Want Me to Do,” played in the key of E.

The pickup bar features a rolling double hammer-on on the D string, followed on beat one of bar 1 with an open low E and a trill on the G string to the major third, G#, played simultaneously. Both the trill lick and the rolling double hammer on provide complementary melodic content to the insistent rhythm sounded on the lower strings.

In bar 9, B7/A is played by combining B7-type lines with the open A string, yielding an unusual, and signature, effect. Bars 11 and 12 serve as the “turnaround,” with single-note phrases based on the E blue scale (E G A Bb B D) setting up the “V” (five) chord, B7.

FIGURE 2 is based on another Reed hit, “You Don’t Have to Go,” which sounds in the key of F. Reed would move the capo up and down the neck to change keys, which enabled him to play all of his songs in the same manner—as if he were playing in the key of E without a capo (for example, “Bright Lights, Big City” is played with the capo at the fifth fret, sounding in the key of A).

Akin to FIGURE 1, a repeated melodic pattern is established on the higher strings, alternating against the driving rhythm part on the lower strings. Again, B7/A is used in bar 9, and the turnaround lick in bars 11 and 12 offers a slight twist, setting up a return to the initial lick from bar 1. A complete exploration of Reed’s music is required listening for any aspiring blues guitarist.

Also check out the great tribute album, On the Jimmy Reed Highway, recorded by legendary Austin, Texas, guitarists Jimmie Vaughan and Omar Kent Dykes in 2011. Texas blues master Lightnin’ Hopkins was a virtuoso guitarist who often performed solo, developing a chord-melody style that greatly influenced blues-rock icons Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter, Billy Gibbons and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Like Reed, Hopkins combined fingerpicking with the use of a thumb pick.

FIGURE 3 is played in the style of his song “Katie Mae,” and throughout, intricate melodic lines on the top three strings dominate the solo guitar performance. To execute these parts, alternate between the thumb and either the index or middle finger (or both used simultaneously). At bar 5, the “IV” (four) chord, A7, includes a simple melodic pattern on the high E string, moving between G at the third fret and the open string.

These single note lines are also based on the E blues scale. Muddy Waters, known as the “Father of Chicago Blues,” learned much of his guitar style from listening to Son House and Robert Johnson. He also fingerpicked with a thumb pick, and his initial solo recordings, such as “Feel Like Going Home” and “Rollin’ Stone,” became hits.

FIGURE 4, played in the style of “Rollin’ Stone,” features a consistently alternating low-string/high-string figure, adapted later by Hendrix as the basis for “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return).” Of the four parts illustrated, this is the most complex, so work through each bar slowly and carefully, striving for rhythmic precision and clean articulation.

Today, Guitar World and Ernie Ball present an exclusive—and touching—video featuring blues legend Buddy Guy, who happens to share the cover of our all-new May 2016 issue with Zakk Wylde.

The clip is from the premiere episode of Ernie Ball: The Pursuit of Tone, a new AT&T original documentary series.

In the clip, which you can check out below, Buddy shares Muddy Waters' last words to him—“Keep the blues alive.” He also describes the moment he found out Waters, his good friend, had passed away.

You can see the entire episode 8 p.m. ET/PT March 25 on Audience Music (Directv channel 239 or U-Verse channel 1114)—or watch it on-demand.

Here’s a down and dirty blues by Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi performed live at the White House on two acoustic guitars.

It’s the song “Rollin and Tumblin,” a blues tune first recorded by singer/guitarist Hambone Willie Newbern in 1929.

Called a "great Delta blues classic,” it has been interpreted by hundreds of Delta and Chicago blues artists, including well-known recordings by Muddy Waters.

Tedeschi and Trucks covered this song on their 2012 album Everybody’s Talkin’”

Check out this fun dual acoustic performance here:

“They always try to write off the blues. Well, we’ve proven tonight that at least 9,000 people like the blues.”

So says Joe Bonamassa on Joe Bonamassa: Muddy Wolf at Red Rocks, a new live CD, DVD and Blu-ray that will be released March 24.

The shows were recorded last Labor Day weekend, when Bonamassa and his band performed a tribute to blues legends Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado.

Below, you can check out two preview clips from the DVD. Up top we have Bonamassa's version of Muddy Waters' "I Can't Be Satisfied," followed by Howlin' Wolf's "Shake for Me."

Every variation of Joe Bonamassa: Muddy Wolf at Red Rocks is available for pre-order now at shop.jbonamassa.com.

Enjoy!

"I Can't Be Satisfied"

"Shake for Me"

On July 10, Eagle Rock Entertainment will release a very cool piece of rock and blues history -- Muddy Waters & The Rolling Stones Live at The Checkerboard Lounge Chicago 1981 -- on CD and DVD.

On November 22, 1981, the Stones were crossing the US on tour when they had a night off in Chicago. What to do? It was a no-brainer: Muddy Waters was in town, performing at his own club, The Checkerboard Lounge.

Obviously, the Stones stopped in to check him out. Muddy soon called Mick Jagger, Ron Wood, Keith Richards and Ian Stewart (the band's touring piano player and one of its earliest semi-members) onto the stage, and the four Stones jammed with Muddy and his band to the delight of Muddy's lucky patrons.

Luckily, it was all caught on camera and recorded. You can check out a low-quality YouTube video of the night in the clip below -- but don't worry, the DVD looks and sounds much better, thanks to DTS Surround Sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital Stereo. The 90-minute performance was mixed and mastered by Bob Clearmountain.

The performance, which also features Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, has been available only as a bootleg (and in low-quality YouTube videos!), but this is the complete package. This slice of history also will be released as a DVD/2LP vinyl set on September 11.

Check out the track listings below.

TRACK LISTING:

DVD:
1) Sweet Little Angel
2) Flip Flop And Fly
3) Muddy Waters Introduction
4) You Don’t Have To Go
5) Country Boy
6) Baby Please Don’t Go
7) Hoochie Coochie Man
8) Long Distance Call
9) Mannish Boy
10) Got My Mojo Working
11) Next Time You See Me
12) One Eyed Woman
13) Baby Please Don’t Go (Instrumental)
14) Blow Wind Blow
15) Champagne & Reefer

CD:
1) Introduction Instrumental
2) You Don’t Have To Go
3) Baby Please Don’t’ Go
4) Hoochie Coochie Man
5) Long Distance Call
6) Mannish Boy
7) Got My Mojo Working
8) Next Time You See Me
9) One Eyed Woman
10) Blow Wind Blow
11) Champagne & Reefer