Howlin Wolf cover of "I'm A Man" by Bo Diddley

December 2, 2005 11:24 AM

Looking for a live Howlin Wolf cover of "I'm A Man," by Bo Diddley.

I was out of town recently, scanning radio stations, and caught a blues show. The dj introduced the last song as "I'm A Man," and said it was by Howlin Wolf.
The song is definitely "I'm A Man," which was written by Bo Diddley, and the performance was definitely live, and definitely not Bo Diddley. Beyond that, I don't know too much, other than there were occasionally people yelling in the background.

Anyone know where I can find a copy of this incredible live performance? Preferably in electronic form? I searched iTunes, Amazon, allofmp3.com, and a few others with no luck.

posted by fearless_yakov to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Since nobody's piped up yet, have you considered tracking down the radio station and asking the staff? Most stations keep track of what they play. Even if they don't have a list handy, they should be able to put you in contact with the programmer working at the time, who should know.

Look here to narrow down the list of station candidates. If it was an educational, public, non-profit or community-supported radio station chances are its frequency is 91.9MHz or below.

(Look here if it was an AM station.)

Also, many, many years ago I used to engineer for an extremely knowledgeable blues show host who I'm sure would know. Email me if you get stuck and I'll try to find out if he's still active.
posted by Opposite George at 6:02 PM on December 2, 2005

Holger Petersen (host of Saturday Night Blues on CBC Radio One, and owner of Stony Plains Records) can probably identify the recording for you if no-one else can.

http://www.cbc.ca/snb/
http://www.stonyplainrecords.com/
posted by winston at 7:03 PM on December 2, 2005

Best answer: My guess is that it was maybe Muddy Waters, not Howlin' Wolf - maybe the DJ had a few too many, or just got tired? Anyway, Muddy's version of that tune (his is called Mannish Boy), and every recording he made of it always had people yelling in the background on the chorus, so it sounded live (Muddy knew a good thing when he heard it). iTunes has about a dozen different versions of him singing it, for reference.

The one that's included on Real Folk Blues (also on the Chess Box Set, and Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues, this is the 2 minute, 50-something second version) is the best, IMO - recorded in 1955, but sounds really, really good.
posted by sluggo at 9:44 AM on December 3, 2005

Response by poster: That's it! Thanks, sluggo. The different name threw me off, but you nailed it.
posted by fearless_yakov at 11:28 AM on December 3, 2005