Manic Monday: Muddy Waters Plugs In Loud at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival

Up until 1960, Newport Jazz Festival crowds expected relaxing jazz and maybe some polite acoustic blues. What they got instead in 1960 from Muddy Waters was a full Chicago blues band cranked up electric. This set helped legitimize amplified blues on big stages. It directly influenced the next wave—bands like The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin were built on this sound, and, to some extent, so was AC/DC. Watch the unexpected “influencer” get loud at Newport Jazz 1960…