i must have been having a jr wells day yesterday; before i saw R Sleigh's message i'd been watching 'Messin' with the blues', the dvd which is included with the Buddy Guy & Jr Wells Cd "Drinkin' TNT 'n' smokin' dynamite", which is a recording from their 1974 appearance at Montreaux Jazz.
This is a neat video, i think available free on YouTube.
the section where they stay on stage and play as Muddy Waters' pickup band is just great. Jr play some harp reminiscent of the way he played in the 50s and 60s. ive heard people say Jr wells was not a very good harp player, but that is not so. its true that he played less elaborate harp from the late 60s but you know, he was good enough to replace Little Walter in Muddy waters' band when Walter hit with Juke and went out on his own. if you listen to some of the stuff he recorded in the 50s like 'standin' around cryin'', you can tell he really had it all down.
anyway, watching this i was struck by the thought that Buddy Guy wrote in his book about how he was really about to give up and go home when Muddy Waters picked him up and put him in the right place to have a career as a musician, and also that Jr Wells told how he was introduced to public performance by MW telling LW to let Jr use his rig (also how it was LW who insisted Jr drink alcohol, which was instrumental in Jr's early demise), so really i found it poignant to see this show with the 3 of them on stage together. also on this concert BG made a little speech about how welcome they felt in europe on that tour and i believe he meant it.
anyway, i thought i would point people to this video, if you are interested in seeing/hearing Jr wells play with Muddy waters and hearing just how beautifully he could play live. he does some very mellow work on the 64chromatic also
here is the free YT video. i must say the one i watched is rather better quality sometimes you get what you pay for, especially when you dont pay
edit: i found a better quality YT so i replaced the original embed
