Muddy Waters - Mannish Boy

This is a live performance by blues legend Muddy Waters playing the classic song Mannish Boy. It was released by Waters in 1955 on Chess records.
The song is an arrangement of and an answer song to Bo Diddley's song "I'm a Man". (Click here for a previous post of this song) Diddley's song on the other hand was heavily inspired by Muddy's song "Hoochie Coochie Man" written by Willie Dixon. "Mannish Boy" borrows the one chord stop-time arrangement and is also partially credited to Diddley.
It's quite a famous song and it's been done by other artists as well. It's been done live by both Roger Daltrey and Queen. Also Jimi Hendrix has done a version of this song. And it was recently featured in a H&M commercial sung by a woman who quite frankly slaughters the song. It's just so wrong to see a blues number covered and featured in a fashion commercial, plus why the hell did they hire a woman to record it. Does it make much sense for a woman to sing "now I'm a man"? No of course not!
So yeah listen to the original and listen to both Diddley's and Waters' version of this great composition. And avoid the H&M commercial like the plaque!

Enjoy ; )

Dire Straits - Money for Nothing

This is a live performance from Dire Straits performing their classic song "Money for Nothing". It is from the concert DVD "Live At Knebworth 1990 - Parts 1, 2 & 3" (click here for Amazon page).
The song was released as a single in 1985 and the song is from the "Brothers in Arms" album, also from 1985. It became a huge hit, due to many factors. First off, it's a really good song, Sting appeared on the intro singing in falsetto and it spawned a ground breaking music video. The video features very early computer-animation which today looks silly, but back then looked really good and new. (Music video embeded beneath).

In 1985 it won a Grammy for best Rock Performance at the 28th annual Grammy Awards. The lyrics are basically the new MTV generation through the eyes of a middle-aged working class man, shortly. The writing credit is shared between Sting and Mark Knopfler.
This performance is really good, and it also features Eric Clapton who stays in the background for the most part, but does a little solo in the song. It's a good steady performance.

Enjoy ; )