Blue Monday

How could I have gone this long without a Muddy Waters roundup? Here’s the young, sleek, pompadour’d Muddy doing “Rolling Stone,” the title of which was appropriated by a certain band you may have heard of. The man’s staure was such that he even got Buddy Guy to deliver something extra while playing “That Same Thing.” Finally, here’s Muddy performing “Mannish Boy” with The Band during The Last Waltz. Band member Levon Helm’s memoir This Wheel’s On Fire offers some pretty savage debunkery on the group’s all-star swan song and the ensuing film, none worse than the claim that Martin Scorsese’s people tried to convince Helm to kick Muddy off the roster because the show was going to run too long. I’ll leave you to discover Helm’s response, but if that’s what he means by “country rude,” then it’s not the kind of thing you want aimed at you.