The name of the Rolling Stones is taken from a truly great blues song that Muddy Waters recorded as early as 1948 called “Rollin’ Stone”; it is on almost everyone’s short list as one of the greatest popular songs ever. The lyrics (not to mention the music) echo through dozens of rock songs over the decades since: “Well, my mother told my father / Just before I was born / I got a boy child’s comin’ / He’s gonna be, he’s gonna be a rollin’ stone.”
Rolling Stone magazine is also named after “Rollin’ Stone”, as is Bob Dylan’s signature song, “Like a Rolling Stone”. The song is a bridge from the raw blues of Robert Johnson directly to rock and roll; while it is basically a straight blues song, there are startling changes in the beat and cadences over the course of “Rollin’ Stone”. Within the blues world, it is a direct antecedent to Muddy Waters’ 1954 recording of the Willie Dixon song “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man” (Steppenwolf included “Hoochie Coochie Man” on their 1968 debut album Steppenwolf, among numerous other covers by various rock musicians), Bo Diddley’s “I’m a Man” (1955), and Waters’ answer “Mannish Boy” (also in 1955). I suppose that Bo and Muddy had a pretty good rivalry going back then, but on several occasions, I saw a performance of “I’m a Man” by Muddy Waters in later life on a series of films on TV called Living Legends of the Blues – that rendition even leaves the cover of “I’m a Man” by the Yardbirds in the dust.
