Sea.Hear.Now kicks off today in Asbury Park, and the festival line-up promises some epic sets from a stellar line-up. Eddie Vedder’s unmistakable voice was heard last night sound-checking “My City of Ruins,” with Pearl Jam, so festival attendees may at least have some Springsteen music in store, if not an actual guest appearance.
But after a full day and evening of rock and roll, The Stone Pony is the place to be for after-hours blues. Danny Clinch, the event’s co-founder and driving force, will be taking anyone with any stamina left late into the night with The Tangiers Blues Band, and when the TBB is on stage, you never know who else might drop by.
Like when the band re-opened the Asbury Lanes in 2018. Although technically the opening act, the Tangiers Blues Band quickly drew the lion’s share of attention when Bruce Springsteen joined them on-stage for four songs.
Three of the songs they played that night were early rock and roll classics, but one song lived up to The Tangiers Blues Band moniker: Willie Dixon’s “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” first recorded by Muddy Waters (with Dixon on bass) under the name “Just Make Love to Me” in 1954.
Waters’ recording reached #4 on the Billboard R&B chart, became a blues classic, and inspired several notable covers over the next decade or so, including one from Etta James that served as the B-side to her signature song, “At Last…”
…one from The Rolling Stones, who released it as the second track on their debut album…
…and a driving guitar jam from Foghat that broke the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972, giving the band their first hit with their updated version of Dixon’s song.
Over the years, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, Tom Petty, Van Morrison, and even Adele have all covered “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” and that’s nowhere close to an exhaustive list.
The TBB took the song way back to its bluesy roots that night in 2018, with Danny and Bruce sharing the spotlight on harmonica and guitar respectively, in an eight-minute-plus arrangement that would have been right at home in Bruce’s 1971-72 set lists with The Bruce Springsteen Band.
We might miss those rocking E Street sets, but it’s great to see Bruce exercise those blues muscles once in a while, too. It’s been a couple years now since the last time he’s done that, but you never know… maybe we’ll get a delightful surprise sometime soon.
I Just Want to Make Love to You
First performed: June 18, 2018 (Asbury Park, NJ)
Last performed: June 18, 2018 (Asbury Park, NJ)
Sounds like you know about something coming out that the rest of us don’t!
Not at all, my apologies if it seemed that way.
Epic stuff. Get rid of the foghat.