The Rolling Stones' 1963 Crawdaddy Club Setlists: Deep Blues Immersion

The Stones didn’t just play the Crawdaddy Club—they treated it like a blues-radio broadcast booth. Their early 1963 setlists read like a Chicago juke-joint primer, stacked with Howlin’ Wolf and Bo Diddley covers that most British kids had never heard. Wolf’s “Little Red Rooster” and “Spoonful” were nightly staples, and they even snuck in “I’m a King Bee” (Slim Harpo, but same raw Delta-unto-Chicago lineage). Bo Diddley’s “I’m a Man,” “Pretty Thing,” and “Mona” gave the rhythm section a hypnotic, tremolo-pounded backbone that Jagger and Richards would later bend into their own signature swagger.

What’s striking is how unfiltered the setlists were. Bands at the time often buffered blues with pop or skiffle, but the Stones went straight for the source—no Cliff Richard, no Shadows. They covered “Route 66” (Nat King Cole’s travel blues) and “You Can Make It If You Try” (