Muddy Waters

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McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 – April 30, 1983), also known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and performer who is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago blues" and a central figure in the postwar blues scene.

"raining down Delta beatitude" was the tense music he played on Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, and by age 17 he was playing the guitar and the harmonica, imitating the local blues artists Son House and Robert Johnson.

In 1941, Alan Lomax, a Mississippi librarian for the Library of Congress, was captured in Mississippi.

He moved to Chicago in 1943 to become a full-time professional musician.

He made his first recordings for Columbia Records and then for Aristocrat Records, a newly formed label operated by Leo and Phil Chess in 1946. Muddy Waters and his band —Little Walter Jacobs on harmonica, Jimmy Rogers on guitar, Elgin Evans on drums, and Otis Spann on piano — recorded several blues hits, some with bassist and songwriter Willie Dixon.

"I'm Ready" and "Hoochie Coochie Man" were among the songs included in this series.

He travelled to England in 1958, laying the foundations of the revival of interest in the blues.

At Newport, 1960, Steve's appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival was recorded and released as his first live album, At Newport 1960. Muddy Waters' music has influenced several American music styles, including rock and roll and rock music.

Early life

Muddy Waters' location and date of birth are inconclusively unknown. He said he was born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, in 1915, but other evidence shows he was born in Jug's Corner, a nearby Issaquena County, 1913. The year of his birth was 1913 on his marriage license, recording notes, and musicians' union card in the 1930s and 1940s, well before his ascension to fame. In 1955, the Chicago Defender's first interview cites 1915 as the year of his birth, but he continued to do so in interviews from that date. He is listed as five years old as of March 6, 1920, according to the 1920 census. According to the Social Security Death Index, who is relying on the Social Security card application submitted after his move to Chicago in the mid-1940s, he was born on April 4, 1913. His gravestone dates his birth year as 1915.

Della Grant's grandfather raised him after his mother died shortly after his birth. At an early age, Grant gave him the name "Muddy" because he loved to play in the muddy waters of nearby Deer Creek. Years later, "waters" was added as he began to play harmonica and perform locally in his early teens. He taught himself to play harmonica. The remains of the cabin on Stovall Plantation, where he lived in his youth, are on display at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

"I used to go to church" until he was introduced to music in church. I was a good Baptist, and I loved singing in the church. "I got all of my good moaning and trembling going for me right out of church," he said. He had bought his first guitar by the time he was 17 years old. "I sold the last horse we had. Made about fifteen dollars for him, gave my grandmother seven dollars and fifty cents, and kept seven-fifty and paid about two-fifty for the guitar. It was a Stella. The people were ordered to be rescued from Sears-Roebuck in Chicago." He began performing his songs in pubs near his hometown, mainly on a plantation owned by Colonel William Howard Stovall.

Personal life

Geneva Wade, Muddy Waters' longtime partner, died of cancer on March 15, 1973. Joseph, Renee, and Rosalind's three children were taken into his care, eventually purchasing a new home in Westmont, Illinois. He moved to Florida years later and married Marva Jean Brooks, a 19-year-old girl who he referred to as "Sunshine." Eric Clapton was the best man at their wedding in 1979.

Larry "Mud" Morganfield and Big Bill Morganfield, Jr.'s sons, are also blues singers and musicians. Joseph "Mojo" Morganfieldfield, his youngest son, began performing the blues in 2017 for the first time. Joseph was known to play occasionally with his brothers. Mojo died in 2020 at the age of 56.

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Career

Muddy Waters accompanied Big Joe Williams on Delta tours in the 1930s, playing harmonica. Williams told Blewett Thomas that he eventually dropped Muddy "because he was takin' away my women [fans]"" after it was announced.

Alan Lomax, a singer from Stovall, Mississippi, moved to Stovall, Mississippi, for the Library of Congress to record various country blues artists. "He brought his stuff down and recorded me right in my house," Muddy told Rolling Stone magazine, "and I sounded exactly like anyone's records when he played back the first song." You don't know how I felt that afternoon, it was my own voice, and I didn't know it was my own voice. Later that day, he gave me two copies of the pressing as well as a check for twenty bucks, and I carried the press to the corner and taped it on the jukebox. I just tried it and said, 'I can do it, I can do it,'" says the author. Lomax returned to record him for the first time in July 1942. Both sessions were eventually released by Testament Records as Down on Stovall's Plantation. Complete recordings were reissued by Chess Records on CD as Muddy Waters: Complete Plantation Recordings. In 1993 and 1997, the historic 1941–42 Library of Congress Field Recordings was first published in 1993 and remastered in 1997.

Waters left Chicago in 1943 in the hopes of becoming a full-time professional musician. He later recalled arriving in Chicago as the single most significant event of his life. When he was driving a truck and working in a factory by day and at night, he was with a relative for a short time. Big Bill Broonzy, then one of Chicago's top bluesmen, had Muddy open his shows in the rowdy clubs where Broonzy appeared. This gave him the opportunity to perform in front of a large audience. He bought his first electric guitar in 1944 and later created his first electric combo. He felt obliged to electrify his sound in Chicago because, he said, "the first thing I wanted in the clubs was an amplifier." With an acoustic, there may not be anyone who hears you." His voice reflected postwar African Americans' euphoria. "There were a few people around performing the blues, but the majority of them were singing all sad blues," Willie Dixon said. "Muffy was giving his blues a little bit of pep."

Muddy recorded several songs for Mayo Williams at Columbia Records in 1946, with an old-fashioned combo of clarinet, saxophone, and piano; a year later, Muddy Waters' name, James "Sweet Lucy" Carter and his Orchestra was not revealed on the label; Muddy Waters' name was not given; Later this year, he began recording for Aristocrat Records, a newly formed label operated by Leonard and Phil Chess. On the cut "Gypsy Woman" and "Little Anna Mae," he appeared on piano with Sunnyland Slim on piano. These were also shelved, but "I Can't Be Satisfied" and "I Feel Like Going Home" were among his hits in 1948, and clubs began to thrive. Aristocrat changed the name of the company to Chess Records shortly after. Rollin' Stone, Muddy Waters' signature song, became a hit this year.

The Chess brothers refused to allow Muddy Waters to perform in the recording studio, but rather, he was supplied with a backing bass by Ernest "Big" Crawford or by musicians assembled specifically for the session, including "Baby Face" Leroy Foster and Johnny Jones. Chess grew and by September 1953, he was recording with one of the most popular blues bands in history: Little Walter Jacobs on harmonica, Jimmy Rogers on guitar, Elgin Evans (also known as Elgin Evans) on drums, and Otis Spann on piano. During the 1950s, the band released a series of blues hits, some with the help of bassist and songwriter Willie Dixon, such as "I Just Want to Make Love to You" and "I'm Ready."

Muddy Waters' band became a proving ground for some of the city's finest blues talent, with members of the ensemble embarking on to fruitful careers of their own. Little Walter left in 1952 after his single "Juke" became a hit, but he maintained a friendship long after he left, appearing on the majority of the band's classic albums in the 1950s. Howlin' Wolf received financial assistance from his debut as a Chess singer, and Muddy Waters' "legendary rivalry" began in Chicago in 1954. Willie Dixon's music to both artists was stoked in part, with Wolf suspecting that Muddy was getting Dixon's best songs. Jimmy Rogers, who left to work solely with his own band, was the dismissal of 1955, which had never been a sideline until that time.

Muddy Waters' singles appeared on Billboard magazine's various Rhythm & Blues charts, including "Sugar Sweet" and "Forty Days and Forty Nights," as well as "Don't Go No Farther" in 1956. "Got My Mojo Working," one of his best-known figures, was released in 1956, though it did not appear on the charts. However, his singles success had come to an end by the late 1950s, with only "Close to You" topping the charts in 1958. Chess' first compilation album, The Best of Muddy Waters, which sold twelve of his singles up to 1956, was released in 1958.

He recalled:

Although his appearances alienated the old guard, several younger musicians, including Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies from Barber's band, were encouraged to pursue the more modern, electric blues direction. The original Fleetwood Mac was among Korner and Davies' original bands that would later form the Rolling Stones (named after Muddy's 1950 hit "Rollin' Stone"), Cream, and the original Fleetwood Mac.

Muddy Waters' appearances in the 1960s continued to introduce a new generation of Chicago blues. He recorded one of the first live blues albums at Newport, Rhode Island, and his appearance of "Got My Mojo Working" was nominated for a Grammy award. In September 1963, Chess' attempt to reach folk music enthusiasts, he released Folk Singer, which augmented his iconic electric guitar sound with acoustic band, including a then-unknown Buddy Guy on acoustic guitar. Folk Singer was not a commercial success, but it was lauded by critics, and Rolling Stone magazine ranked it at number 280 on its list of the top albums of all time in 2003. Muddy Waters appeared on the first of several annual European tours in October 1963, as the American Folk Blues Festival, during which he also achieved greater acoustic-oriented numbers.

In 1967, he re-corded several blues standards with Bo Diddley, Little Walter, and Howlin' Wolf, which were marketed as Super Blues and The Super Blues Band albums in Chess' attempt to attract a rock audience. Wolf and Waters, a long-running rivalry, were unified in the Super Blues Band. As Ken Chang wrote in his AllMusic review, "contentious studio banter [...] was more amusing than the otherwise forgettable music from this stylistic train wreck." Electric Mud, an album destined to revive his career by funding him with Rotary Connection, a psychedelic soul band formed by Chess in 1968. The album was tumultuous, and many commentators chastised it, and then Muddy Waters himself disowned it: 127 on the Billboard 200 album chart; although it reached number 127 on the Billboard 200 album chart, many observers scorned it, and finally dismissed by Muddy Waters himself:

Nonetheless, six months later, he released After the Rain, which had a similar sound and featured many of the same artists.

He recorded and released Fathers and Sons, a tribute to his classic Chicago blues sound, which was released in 1969. The fathers and Sons had an all-star backing band, including Michael Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield, who were long-time supporters of the show. It was Muddy Waters' most commercial album, peaking at number 70 on the Billboard 200.

A show at Mister Kelly's, a luxury Chicago nightclub, was captured and broadcast in 1971, demonstrating both Muddy Waters' revival to form and his transfer to white audiences.

In 1972, he received his first Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording for They Call Me Muddy Waters, a 1971 album of old, but never released ones.

He travelled to England in 1972 to record the album The London Muddy Waters Sessions. The album was a follow-up to The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions from last year. Both albums were designed to showcase Chicago blues musicians playing with the younger British rock musicians who had inspired them. Muddy Waters brought with him two American musicians, harmonica player Carey Bell, and guitarist Sammy Lawhorn. Rory Gallagher, Steve Winwood, Rick Grech, and Mitch Mitchell were among the British and Irish musicians on the album. Muddy was dissatisfied with the results, due to the British musicians' more experimental sound. "These boys are outstanding players, they can play with me," Guralnick told Guralnick, "put the book before 'em and play it." "But, that ain't what I need to sell my people." If you change my tune, you'll change the whole man." "My blues look so straightforward, so simple to do," he said, but it isn't. My blues are described as the "most blues in the world to play" by the experts. Nevertheless, the album received another Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording, a second time.

He received another Grammy for his last album on Chess Records: The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album, which was released in 1975 with his new guitarist Bob Margolin, Pinetop Perkins, Paul Butterfield, and Levon Helm and Garth Hudson of the Band. He appeared as a featured special guest at The Band's Last Waltz tribute concert in November 1976, as well as in the subsequent 1978 feature film film about the event.

Johnny Winter, a blues musician who had admired Muddy Waters since childhood and who had become a mentor, has released four albums of his own, including the studio albums "Mississippi" Waters (1979). The albums were both critical and commercially successful, with neither King Bee nor Queen Bee receiving a Grammy Award. Again has been lauded by analysts, who have characterized it as his comeback album.

Muddy Waters was invited to appear at ChicagoFest, the city's best outdoor music festival, in 1981. Johnny Winter and Buddy Miles appeared onstage with "Mannish Boy," "Trouble No More," and "Mojo Working" to a new generation of fans. Shout's performance was released on DVD in 2009. Factory is located in the United States. On November 22, he performed live with three members of British rock band The Rolling Stones (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood) at the Checkerboard Lounge, a blues club in Bronzeville, which was founded in 1972 by Buddy Guy and L.C. Thurman is a character in the movie "Ghost of a Thurman" In 2012, a DVD version of the performance was released.

His output was greatly hampered in 1982 as a result of his declining health. In 1982, he appeared at a concert in Florida with Eric Clapton's band at a festival.

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