Blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa is no stranger to covering the songs of the blues masters, having, for example, included tracks from Robert Johnson (“Stones in My Passway”), Howlin’ Wolf (“Who’s Been Talking”), and Willie Dixon (“I Got All You Need”) all on his recent Driving Towards the Daylight album. But never before has Bonamassa devoted an entire recording to the songs of the legends that came before him, as he’s done on his latest double CD, DVD, and Blu-ray collection Muddy Wolf at Red Rocks.
The first in a planned series of concerts and recordings paying homage to some of the biggest names of the blues, Muddy Wolf captures Bonamassa presenting the songs of two greats, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, as performed during a historic concert at Colorado’s famous Red Rocks Amphitheater last fall, the largest show of Bonamassa’s career. (Bonamassa has already announced the dates for the next installment of the series, which will come in the form of a “Three Kings” – as in Albert, B.B., and Freddie – tour taking place across the U.S. this summer.)
Recorded Labor Day weekend of 2014, Muddy Wolf includes more than two hours of songs from Waters and The Wolf as well as a handful from Bonamassa’s own catalog, backed by a band (appropriately dubbed the Muddy Wolf Band) assembled just for this occasion that features Reese Wynans (Double Trouble) on keyboards and organ, longtime Late Show drummer Anton Fig, Kirk Fletcher on guitar, Michael Rhodes on bass, Mike Henderson on harmonica, and Lee Thornburg, Ron Dziubla, and Nick Lane on horns. This of course includes some of the artists’ most famous numbers in tracks like “I Can’t Be Satisfied”, “Tiger in Your Tank”, “You Shook Me”, “Spoonful”, “Killing Floor”, and “Evil (is Going On)”, but also some lesser-known songs such as Waters’ “Stuff You Gotta Watch”, “Real Love”, “My Home is On the Delta”, and “All Aboard” and Wolf’s “All Night Boogie (All Night Long)”.
Both music discs start with short clips of each of the greats performing their songs – for Waters, the punchy “Tiger in Your Tank”, and a gritty “How Many More Years” for The Wolf – before transitioning seamlessly into the Muddy Wolf Band’s takes on those same numbers. The horns and keyboards help give many of the songs a swinging sound, and it’s clear from very early on that this isn’t just about Bonamassa showing off on guitar: although there are plenty of Bonamassa solos, you’ll also hear a whole lot of “c’mon Mike”, “c’mon Reese”, “c’mon Kirk”, and “c’mon Michael” calls from Joe throughout the show, often one right after another.
