Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield, 1915-1983)

Born into a sharecropping family near Clarksdale, Muddy was raised by his grandmother after his mother died when he was three. He learned harmonica and guitar and played in a string band with the fiddler Henry "Son" Sims, who had recorded with Charlie Patton (listen). In his late teens he began playing acoustic guitar inspired by the deep blues of local favorite Son House (listen), influenced by Robert Johnson (listen) who was in the neighborhood from time to time too. Muddy Waters got his nickname because he liked to play in a nearby muddy creek, a nickname that followed him through his whole life.

At age 26 and sharecropping eight acres on Sherrod's plantation, folksong collector Alan Lomax came through on one of his Library Of Congress expeditions in the summer of 1941 and was blown away by Muddy's slide guitar playing and lyrics. Lomax recorded him solo and with the band The Son Simms Four. "Country Blues" (listen) and "I Be's Troubled" (listen) were two solo pieces included in a non-commercial album recorded by Lomax and made available to libraries and scholars in 1942. His meetings with Muddy is described in his book The land Where the Blues Began.

Big Bill Broonzy (listen) and Sonny Boy Williamson I (listen) encouraged Muddy to pursue a music carrier and shortly thereafter he migrated to Chicago. You can still hear Muddy hollering across the cornfield on his early recordings for Aristocrat and Chess, "I Can't Be Satisfied" (listen) and "Rollin'Stone" says it all. Muddy was working on a band idea and he practised hard with Jimmy Rogers (listen) and harmonica player Little Walter (listen) laying the foundations and realized on record in 1952-53 with drummer Elga Edmonds and pianist Otis Spann (listen).

"I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man"(listen), "I Just Want To Make Love To You" both from 1954, "I'm Ready" (listen) and "Got My Mojo Working" both from 1956, became the anthems of Chicago blues songs in the next decade and consequently Muddy Waters became the chief architect of the revolutionary blues style called Electric Chicago, because it first surfaced in Chicago and stood out because of the emphasis on electronic amplification. Though T-Bone Walker had been playing a softer electric blues a decade before the Chicago sound started, Waters distorted the sound cranking up the amp until the electronic circuitry would be overworked. His style influenced a generation of rockers and guitarists would spend lots of money on gear modified to sound like Muddy's primitive amp.

When not on the road, Muddy held court at Pepper's Lounge or Smitty's Corner now that he was Chicago's leading bluesman. Britain in 1958, became the first country he visited, then in 1961 continental Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival and frequently thereafter. He recorded an album in England in 1971 with local R&B heroes Georgie Fame and Rory Gallagher called The London Muddy Waters Sessions (listen).

Muddy was firmly established on the domestic circuit of blues festivals and college-town clubs by the mid-seventies, he had parted from Chess but made four albums for CBS/Blue Sky from 1977-1981 with Johnny Winter (listen) as producer. The band consisted of guitarists Luther Johnson Jr (listen) and Bob Margolin (listen), pianist Pinetop Perkins (listen) and harmonica player, Jerry Portnoy (listen) and remained steady through the seventies but was dissolved in 1980 after a dispute with Muddy Waters' management.
The albums presented snarling, roaring Muddy Waters blues in modern multi track sound and sustained his position in the blues style that he did best when he died of a heart attack in his sleep at age 68.

Key Recordings:

•The Complete Plantation Recordings
•The Muddy Waters Chess Box
•One More Mile
•Blues Sky

Here is a taste of Muddy Waters: