6. Muddy WatersHard Again
He teamed up with Johnny Winter for this. It starts off with this version of ‘Mannish Boy’ which will knock you off your feet. ‘Cor dear, it’s powerful. And it’s got a load of good stuff on it. When I was with the Feelgoods, I went with Lee (Brilleaux) one time to the CBS convention in Atlanta and one of the people appearing was Muddy Waters with Johnny Winter. They were playing stuff from this album. One of the songs was called ‘The Blues Had A Baby and They Named It Rock & Roll’. We were sitting there at this big banquet, you know, all the CBS people there, we were sitting at the table with the boss man. They came on and started playing, and Muddy Waters started playing this guitar solo. When he hit the second chorus I couldn’t restrain myself any longer – up until then I’d been acting pretty cool, you know – and I just jumped up and was going, ‘Yeaaah!’ and then everybody else did. And then when they started playing ‘The Blues Had A Baby’, I went, ‘oh man…’ Oh dear, it went right to my heart. Afterwards they were saying to me, ‘Wilko, do you want to meet Muddy Waters?’ and I said, ‘No…’ I didn’t dare to really. I’d seen him play two or three times before that over the years, but there was something special about that and that album.
