Covers galore for the Bob Dylan faithful still plugging away at these live performances from decades ago. Keeping a part of the light folk tones heard in the jazz joys of Muddy Waters’ work is no surprise here. Bob Dylan keeps that light on, however dim, as he charges through this electrified adaptation of Hootchie Cootchie Man. Songs which moved him back in the day make for ample setlist fodder decades on from its first influential steps. Ripped from a stage in East Rutherford, New Jersey, comes a common theme to Dylan’s shows in the 1990s. His set would often include a cover or two, it is a practice he would make good on from the turn of the century to now. It is only recently that Rough and Rowdy Ways has taken precedence, the full project, or thereabouts, is an established narrative which can be woven with a few covers.
But for this period of stage life, and a year before Rough and Rowdy Ways came to be, Dylan would throw these covers together for the sake of it. To keep his band on their toes. To make sure he was not slipping and that he could still hold up his influence. Waters’ classic blues-driven brilliance is put to the stage well by Dylan. Take a moment to listen in to those additional instrumentals, they make good on the harmonica-led powerhouse of I’m Your Hootchie Cootchie Man. They get the instrumental thump down to a tee. Those groovy, guitar-laden first notes hold the same swagger for Dylan as they did for Waters. His dedication to the tempo and flow of these lyrics is perhaps the most surprising part of all. It is not as though Dylan is keen to stick to the usual studio flow of his work, let alone covers
It is what makes Hootchie Cootchie Man such a shock performance. He has kept himself steady to the intent Waters had on the original. Hearing the works of Waters adapted to the stage by Dylan is a great thrill, and not just because of one legend’s take on another. Those instrumental features, the slick guitar solo work and the sudden halt guided by the percussion before those repetitions of seven days and seven doctors, are solid gold. One of the finest Dylan covers out there, buried in a compilation of live moments from the 1990s. Folk magic is key to this interpretation and, though it may not sound like it here, makes good in the early years of Dylan. That is where this song finds its influence.
Hootchie Cootchie Man lasts on as a fantastic piece of Willie Dixon-written work. Where it may be a Waters song through and through, one of the best live versions available is from Dylan who, in brief pockets of this New Jersey-based performance, sounds like a spritely, youthful performer making good on the folk charms which moulded his career. Self-mythology is all well and good if you have the career to maintain this mysterious image. Dylan has this in abundance and furthers it that little bit more with a sly and slick rendition of a classic folk track. Prophecies and powerful reckonings are made good on as they were on Street Legal, the line tying the too rather loose given Dylan’s aversion to the latter, but Hootchie Cootchie Man has flickers of that underrated 1978 effort.
