Muddy Waters & the Rolling Stones

Live at the Checkerboard Lounge, Chicago 1981 (Eagle Vision)

In 1981, with neither Mick Jagger nor Keith Richards yet 40, the Rolling Stones were deemed glue factory vintage in touring Tattoo You. Cameras crowd Buddy Guy’s hole-in-the-wall club during the group’s Chicago stop, with the Stones’ frontline and an entourage of wives, girlfriends, and sidemen – including future Austinite Ian McLagan – loading in during Muddy Waters’ “Baby Please Don’t Go.” By that point, Richards’ so-called “Blues Buddha” has already proved himself on a beat-up Telecaster, his giant mitts manhandling the slide on a long, luxurious “Country Boy.” Waters lights up watching and prompting Jagger on “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “Champagne and Reefer,” and “Mannish Boy,” wherein he finally gets up from his seat of honor and asserts some seniority. Buddy Guy and Junior Wells arrive, Muddy and Mick get offstage, and Keith and Ronnie back the Lefty Dizz show. Richards and Ian Stewart, grinning like school lads, match the guitarist soloing next to papa Waters, who died two years later at 70.

This article appears in August 31 • 2012.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.