At Newport 1960

The performance was recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival on Sunday 3 July 1960, and Chess Records released it in the United States on 15 November, with label owner Leonard Chess as producer. The gig nearly did not happen. The day before, shows by Ray Charles and by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross met with unruly crowds, police used tear gas and water hoses, and the National Guard was called in at midnight. Waters and his band had intended to drive back, but their driver, Cotton, saw John Lee Hooker standing on a corner with his guitar and no case and said Hooker should get into his car, out of harm's way. The city council decided to cancel the concert, and promoter George Wein persuaded the performers to stay by saying that the United States Information Agency planned to film the festival.

The band first backed the pianist Otis Spann, who led it, and John Lee Hooker. At about seven in the evening Waters walked on in black while the band wore white suits. The album opens with I Got My Brand on You, a Willie Dixon song recorded a month earlier and not yet released, and (I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man. It goes on to Big Joe Williams's Baby, Please Don't Go, Soon Forgotten, Tiger in Your Tank and Big Bill Broonzy's I Feel So Good. At the end of Mojo Working every bluesman gathered on the stage for medleys of blues standards. Langston Hughes, who sat on the festival's directorate, wrote Goodbye Newport Blues on the spot, and Spann sang it because Waters was too exhausted.

The cover shows Waters with a semi-acoustic guitar belonging to Hooker, photographed by William Claxton. He had left his Fender Telecaster, the guitar he played in the concert, on the stage. The album reached CD in 1986, and MCA issued a remastered version in 2001 with three bonus tracks recorded in Chicago in June 1960.

It is sometimes called the first live blues album, and Rolling Stone placed it at number 348 on its 500 greatest albums list. Cub Koda of AllMusic wrote that Waters lays it down tough and cool, with a set that had the audience dancing in the aisles by the close. Matthew Oshinsky, in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, praised the merciless refrain of (I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man and the unvarnished moaning of Baby, Please Don't Go. Rolling Stone described the band as tough, tight and in the groove.