Muddy Waters Blues Band — Live, 1977

This filmed live concert shows Muddy Waters and his Blues Band in 1977, a pivotal moment for the patriarch of Chicago blues. That year McKinley Morganfield revived his career with the album Hard Again, produced by Johnny Winter, which won him a Grammy and fresh recognition from rock audiences. On stage, his deep voice and Telecaster slide playing lead a seasoned band, direct heir to the electric sound he invented at the turn of the 1950s by carrying Mississippi Delta blues into the city. This full concert conveys the quiet authority of an artist at the peak of his late-career art, between relentless shuffles and stretched-out slow blues. A representative document of 1970s live blues, it lets you measure Muddy Waters’ direct influence on generations of rock and blues musicians. A capture of heritage value, carried by the stage charisma of one of the founding figures of American popular music.