Willie Dixon was the undisputed Poet Laureate of post-war Chicago blues music. His undoubted expertise as a wordsmith most likely stemmed from the truth that, as a teenager rising up in Vicksburg, Mississippi, he heard his mom recite poetry that she had written. However music wasn’t Dixon’s first calling. He loved a number of years as a reasonably profitable heavyweight boxer earlier than he switched careers. His large break was touchdown a job at Chicago’s Chess label in 1948, the place the mix of his double bass-playing, arranging expertise, expertise scout acumen, and, in fact, songwriting prowess (amongst numerous classics, he penned “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “I Just Want To Make Love To You” and “Back Door Man”), allowed him to rise quickly within the ranks of the corporate’s backroom hierarchy.
“Hoochie Coochie Man” was first recorded on January 7, 1954, by a Delta blues singer with a giant, booming voice who was born McKinley Morganfield, in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. He went underneath the stage identify Muddy Waters, and had already seen some chart motion earlier than arriving at Chess in 1950. Waters had racked up 5 Prime 10 R&B hits for Chess earlier than Dixon supplied him “Hoochie Coochie Man,” which was initially titled “(I’m Your) Hoochie Coochie Man.” It turned Waters’ greatest American hit (No.3 on the R&B charts) and in addition, maybe extra considerably, put Willie Dixon on the map as a songwriter of be aware.
Hearken to the evolution of “Hoochie Coochie Man” on Spotify.
The musical bedrock of the tune is its tense, swaggering, stop-start monolithic guitar riff (doubled by Little Walter’s plaintive harmonica), a element later absorbed into rock music within the 60s and which shortly turned a elementary a part of its DNA.
Like a lot of Dixon’s songs, “Hoochie Coochie Man” bristles with a pent-up eroticism. The time period “hoochie coochie” has its roots in a salacious Nineteenth-century dance, in addition to African-American slang phrases for alcohol and intercourse. Dixon makes “Hoochie Coochie Man” much more highly effective by including the notion of a gypsy prophecy and using black-magic imagery derived from voodoo faith (“I got a black cat bone/I got a mojo too”). He additionally emphasizes the ability and significance of superstition and luck, the latter represented by means of the quantity seven within the tune’s third verse (“On the seventh hour/On the seventh day/On the seventh month/The seventh doctor say…”).
Although Waters loved R&B hits each earlier than and after “Hoochie Coochie Man,” none of them outsold it. In addition to being the Mississippi singer’s biggest-selling single, it additionally turned his signature tune and, maybe as a result of it was perceived because the file that encapsulated his earthy and distinctive type, he went on to file it quite a few occasions throughout his profession.
The lacking hyperlink between Delta blues and rock’n’roll, “Hoochie Coochie Man”’s sound and construction shortly permeated widespread music. In 1955, Bo Diddley recycled the primary riff and used just about the identical vocal melody (although gave it new lyrics) and offered it as his personal composition, “I’m A Man,” which satirically outsold “Hoochie Coochie Man” and topped the US R&B charts. Rock’n’roll songwriters/producers Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller additionally filched “Hoochie Coochie Man”’s riff for The Robins’ hit “Riot In Cell Block No.9.”
With a resurgence of curiosity in blues and people music in each Europe and the US within the 60s, cowl variations of “Hoochie Coochie Man” started to proliferate. One of many earliest got here in 1962, from the UK, when Alexis Korner’s Blues Included bought their fingers on it. Two years later, pop group Manfred Mann recorded the tune on their debut LP, The 5 Faces Of Manfred Mann. Additionally in Britain, The Graham Bond Organisation (with future Cream members Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker aiding organist, Graham Bond) used it because the lead lower on their 1965 album of the identical identify.
One other, extra well-known, Hammond organist was Jimmy Smith, who lower a souped-up jazz model of the tune in 1966, and, a yr later, Chuck Berry – who was at Chess with Muddy Waters within the 50s – recorded a smoking dwell model reconfigured to replicate his personal inimitable type. That very same yr, The Jimi Hendrix Expertise supplied up a supercharged rendering for a BBC radio session. however probably the greatest takes on “Hoochie Coochie Man” within the 60s got here from counterculture darlings Steppenwolf, a Canadian rock group who’re finest remembered for his or her epoch-defining hit “Born To Be Wild.” Their model of Willie Dixon’s tune boasts a hard-as-granite riff, feedback-ridden lead guitar, and growling vocals.
Arguably essentially the most notable model of “Hoochie Coochie Man” within the 70s got here from these pioneers of Southern blues-rock, The Allman Brothers Band, on their Idlewild South LP, the place they served up a high-octane model that includes incendiary slide guitar from Duane Allman.
Across the similar time, Chicago blues guitar grasp Buddy Man served up his personal stripped-back acoustic model of the Willie Dixon tune on the album Buddy And The Juniors (which was a collaboration with harmonica blower Junior Wells and pianist Junior Mance).
Additionally within the early 70s, proto-punks New York Dolls recorded a model of “Hoochie Coochie Man” (although it wasn’t launched till 1992), which was distinguished by Johnny Thunders’ thrashing energy chords and David Johansson’s stentorian vocals and wild harmonica. A distinct perspective of the tune was supplied by soulful New Orleans singer Skip Easterling, whose mellow model, with its dancing flute and gentle horn elements, melds blues with jazz-infused funk.
A lot, a lot heavier was rock trio Motörhead’s seismic rendition from 1983, the place Brian Robertson’s screaming axe counterpoints the late Lemmy Kilmister’s strangulated vocals.
Within the 90s, notable variations have come from ex-Free and Dangerous Firm singer Paul Rodgers; Eric Clapton, who determined to revisit his blues roots when he recorded “Hoochie Coochie Man” on his 1994 album From The Cradle; and Etta James, who recorded it underneath the title “Hoochie Coochie Gal,” in 1998.
In recent times, there have been up to date variations by the late blues rocker Jeff Healey and the large-lunged Karen Beautiful (whose putting model was subtitled “Hoochie Coochie Woman”), whereas, in 2016, a beforehand unheard dwell model by blues aficionados The Doorways, recorded 50 years earlier, surfaced for the primary time on the vinyl field set London Fog.
“Hoochie Coochie Man” has additionally been sampled within the hip-hop age – most notably by Massive Daddy Kane, who borrowed a piece from Willie Dixon’s 1970 model of the tune for his observe “Somebody’s Been Sleeping In My Bed.” Elsewhere, Muddy Waters’ unique 45 was sampled by Spanish rappers Def Con Dos (on their 1993 observe “Toponoto Blues”) and Rapsusklei (on his 2010 tune “Nací Para”).
Properly over half a century because it was first recorded, “Hoochie Coochie Man” reveals no signal of shedding its reputation, and is rightly thought to be a serious constructing block in not solely blues, however rock and pop music as effectively.
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