The gathering of two historic groups of musicians produced two very different results during the second night of the annual Chicago Blues Festival in Grand Park.
A group of veterans of blues legend Muddy Waters’ band performed a fine early set Friday evening, but headliner Bo Diddley gave a lackluster performance despite being reunited with colleagues from his ’50s glory days.
Maybe whatever bug caused the hoarseness in the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s voice (“something must’ve jumped on me with 19 legs,” he told the crowd in a rasp) left Diddley too tired to apply himself. More likely it was just indifference brought on by decades of repetition, as he performed only a handful of his hits, veering quickly from their original lyrics into drawn-out raps.
The others with him onstage acquitted themselves better, particularly drummer Clifton James, guitarist Jody Williams and harmonica player Billy Boy Arnold, all of whom performed and recorded with Diddley five decades ago.
James’ shuffling beats propelled the band’s extended vamps, while Williams–who after abandoning music in the 1960s returned with a fine CD this year–played slinky Latin-tinged leads, and Arnold’s harmonica moaned underneath the groove. It was a terrific band in search of songs to play.
Fortunately, the “Muddy Waters Alumni Association”–guitarists Luther Johnson and John Primer, harmonica players Carey Bell and James Cotton, pianist Pinetop Perkins, bassist Calvin Jones and drummer Willie Smith–put the emphasis squarely on the songs made famous by their former boss. Like Miles Davis, Waters owed part of his greatness to his bands, and these veterans of his ’70s and ’80s ensembles filled the songs with big, clattering beats, rolling crescendos, and a mix of biting guitar, moaning harmonica and rollicking piano.
The musicians couldn’t match Waters’ star power as they took turns singing such blues classics as “Honey Bee” and “Hoochie Coochie Man,” but Primer came close on “19 Years Old,” calling and crying in a rich, soulful voice Waters might have admired.
Following his former colleagues, Cotton performed a set with his own band. Health problems have ruined his voice (he left the singing to the able Darrell Nulisch), but his harmonica playing remained ferocious, as Cotton rocked in his chair while filling songs with flurries, moans and wails as his band stampeded through a set of raucous shuffles.
Rounding out the performances celebrating Muddy Waters’ memory, his son, Big Bill Morganfield, played a late afternoon set. As a singer, Morganfield is sensual and lighthearted where his father was lordly and forceful, and he was in over his head trying to match the roar of Waters’ theme song, “Mannish Boy.” His style worked better as he purred over the groove of “Got My Mojo Working” or growled through his own hard-driving shuffles, such as “What’s the Matter,” which showed off his slashing slide guitar work and his learned, raw band.
