Rollin' Stone

"Rollin' Stone"
Single by Muddy Waters
B-side	Walkin' Blues
Released	1950
Format	78 rpm single
Recorded	February 1950
Genre	Blues
Label	Chess (Cat. No. 1426)
Writer(s)	Muddy Waters
Producer	Leonard Chess

"Rollin' Stone" is the name of a 1950 Muddy Waters blues song. It was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000.

"Rollin' Stone" was written by Muddy Waters, who based the song on Mississippi blues singer/guitarist Robert Petway's song "Catfish Blues", but added a beat and some changes to make it his own. Unusually for a Muddy Waters recording, it was a solo performance; its flip side "Walkin' Blues," also included Ernest "Big" Crawford's string bass. "Rollin' Stone" was the second single released on Chess Records. The song was covered notably by Humble Pie on the album Performance Rockin' the Fillmore.

Influence

The song provided The Rolling Stones with their name, and influenced Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone",[1] as well as Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile" and "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)".

The magazine Rolling Stone, which also took its name from the song, placed the song "Rollin' Stone" at number 459 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004.[2]

Bob Marley & The Wailers (early in their careers) covered this song.

See also

• Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters by Robert Gordon, 2003, 432 pp. ISBN 978-0316164948
• The Chess Label Part I (1950-1952) http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/chess1.html

This blues song-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e