Muddy Waters

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Image:Muddy1.gif McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1915–April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician and is generally considered "the father of Chicago blues."

Born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, Morganfield moved to Clarksdale, Mississippi at the age of three, when his mother died. Waters was subsequently raised by his grandmother. Waters was first recorded on a Mississippi Delta plantation by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in 1941. Lomax had been looking to make more recordings of the legendary Robert Johnson, and he was unaware of Johnson's death, three years earlier.

Morganfield played music anywhere from church picnics to disreputable juke joints, but he longed for a break from the hardscrabble life of rural Mississippi, so he moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he eventually switched from acoustic to electric guitar which was becoming increasingly popular among black musicians, as it allowed them to be heard in heavily crowded city bars. Waters' own guitar playing was gaining notoriety due to his use of the bottleneck on electric guitar (heavily influenced by Robert Johnson's acoustic style). His first recordings for Chess Records featured Waters on guitar and vocals supported by a double bass. Later, he added a rhythm section and the harmonica of Little Walter to form his classic Chicago blues lineup.

With his deep, rich voice, charismatic, ultra-macho personality, and an all-star backing, Waters rapidly became the most recognizable figure of Chicago Blues. Even B.B. King would later recall him as the "Boss of Chicago." Waters' bands were a "who's who" of Chicago blues musicians: Little Walter, Big Walter Horton, James Cotton, Junior Wells on harmonica; Willie Dixon on bass; Otis Spann, Pinetop Perkins on piano; Buddy Guy, Jimmy Rogers, and numerous other notables on guitar.

Waters' recordings of the late 1950s and early 1960s are particularly good. Many of the songs he performed have since became standards: "I've Got My Mojo Working," "Hoochie Coochie Man," "She's Nineteen Years Old", and "Rolling and Tumbling" have all become classic songs, frequently covered by bands from many genres.

Indeed, the birth of rock and roll can be simplified as an amalgamation of the music of Muddy Waters and Hank Williams. Both artists were popular contemporaries being soaked up in the musical melting pot of the Memphis, Tennessee area by the likes of Sam Phillips, and the artists he was beginning to record, including a young Elvis Presley.

Still vital into the era of psychedelia, Waters' music was embraced by Sixties' rock musicians, and a collabaration with Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, and others resulted in the album, Electric Mud (which was later followed by Fathers and Sons), which featured some incendiary, Jimi Hendrix-style arangements of some of Waters' classic songs.

Muddy Waters' albums from the early and mid-1970s are less satisfying. Other than his memorable appearance in the film and recording of The Band's The Last Waltz, Waters sounds mostly old, uninspired, and even out of touch with his own music. A meeting towards the late '70s, however, with Texas guitarist/vocalist Johnny Winter resulted in three of the finest albums Waters ever released. Using Winters' stripped-down (and mostly live) production, the albums Hard Again, I'm Ready and King Bee capture Muddy Waters as riveting and vital as he was in his prime. One listen to the astonishing power of "Mannish Boy" (from Hard Again) and it is clear that Waters sounds utterly reborn, reconnected to the swagger and confidence he possessed when he originally wrote the song two decades earlier. Those albums served as Muddy Waters epitaph, as the legendary bluesman passed away scarcely a year after recording the King Bee album.

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His influence has been enormous across many music genres: blues, rhythm and blues, rock, folk, jazz, and country. Waters even helped Chuck Berry get his first record contract.

His tours of England in the early '60s marked possibly the first time an amplified, hard-rocking band was heard there. (One critic retreated to the restroom to write his review because he found the band so loud.) The Rolling Stones named themselves after his 1950 song, "Rollin' Stone," also known as "Catfish Blues." One of Led Zeppelin's biggest hits, "Whole Lotta Love," is based upon the Muddy Waters song, "You Need Love," which was written by Willie Dixon. Dixon wrote some of Muddy Waters' most famous songs, including "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (a big radio hit for the '70s rock band Foghat), "Hoochie Coochie Man," and "I'm Ready."

Other songs for which Muddy Waters is known include "Long Distance Call", ""Rock Me", and the jumping blues anthem "I've Got My Mojo Working".

Muddy Waters died in Westmont, Illinois at the age of 68 and is interred in the Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois near Chicago. Westmont renamed a street for Waters and holds an annual blues festival there.

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Bibliography

Can't be Satisfied: The Life And Times Of Muddy Waters by Robert Gordon, Keith Richards, 2002, 432 pp. ISBN 0316328499
Muddy Waters: The Mojo Man by Sandra B. Tooze, 1997, 383 pp. ISBN 1550222961
Muddy Waters: Deep Blues by Muddy Waters, 1995, 183 pp. ISBN 0793509556
Muddy Waters: Deep Blues And Good News by Dave Rubin, Muddy Waters ISBN 0793565014
Bossmen: Bill Monroe and Muddy Waters by James R. Rooney, 1991, 163 pp. ISBN 0306804271