Sweet home Chicago

A friend asked me today if I liked the Delta blues. Then Ted Gioia, the jazz and blues historian, tweeted a link to a story on chicagopatterns.com which reports that the house Muddy Waters lived in from 1954 to 1973 — in other words, during the years of his prime — is under threat. Appended to the story is a link to a video clip of Muddy and his band at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960. That famous gig was the source of his great live album, which an older boy brought to play at a lunchtime session of the school jazz society (yes, there were such things) one day in 1961. And that was how, as a 14-year-old, I first heard “I Got My Mojo Workin'”, sung by Muddy with James Cotton on mouth-harp, Otis Spann on piano, Pat Hare on guitar, Andrew Stevens on bass guitar, and left-handed Francis Clay on drums (note the bite out of the edge of his big ride cymbal). Here’s the link to the story. To me, they still look and sound exactly like a band should. Oh yes, I like the Delta blues, and I like what happened to it in Chicago later on, too.