Background

Muddy Waters was born McKinley Morganfield on April 4, 1915, in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, but grew up in Clarksdale, where his grandmother raised him after his mother, Bertha Jones, died in 1918.

His grandmother nicknamed him Muddy when he was a young boy and the kids at school added Waters. He adopted his childhood nickname as his stage name, Muddy Waters. Muddy was a second-generation bluesman, his father Ollie Morganfield was also a talented musician and guitarist.

Education

Waters started out on harmonica but by age seventeen he was playing the guitar at parties and fish fries, emulating two blues artists who were extremely popular in the south, Son House and Robert Johnson. "His thick heavy tone, the dark coloration of his voice and his firm almost stolid manner were all clearly derived from House," wrote Guralnick in Feel Like Going Home, "but the embellishments which he added, the imaginative slide technique and more agile rhythms, were closer to Johnson."

Career

Muddy Waters eagerly absorbed the classic Delta blues styles of Robert Johnson, Son House, and others while developing a style of his own. As a young man, he drove a tractor on the sharecropped plantation, and on weekends he operated the cabin in which he lived as a “juke house,” where visitors could party and imbibe moonshine whiskey made by Waters. He performed both on his own and in a band, occasionally earning a little money playing at house parties. He was first recorded in 1941, for the United States Library of Congress by archivist Alan Lomax, who had come to Mississippi in search of Johnson (who had already died by that time).

In 1943 Waters - like millions of other African Americans in the South who moved to cities in the North and West during the Great Migration from 1916 to 1970 - relocated to Chicago. There he began playing clubs and bars on the city’s South and West sides while earning a living working in a paper mill and later driving a truck. In 1944 he bought his first electric guitar, which cut more easily through the noise of crowded bars. He soon broke with country blues by playing electric guitar in a shimmering slide style. In 1946 pianist Sunnyland Slim, another Delta native helped Waters land a contract with Aristocrat Records, for which he made several unremarkable recordings. By 1948 Aristocrat had become Chess Records (taking its name from Leonard and Phil Chess, the Polish immigrant brothers who owned and operated it), and Waters was recording a string of hits for it that began with "I Feel Like Going Home" and "I Can’t Be Satisfied." His early, aggressive, electrically amplified band - including pianist Otis Spann, guitarist Jimmy Rogers, and harmonica virtuoso Little Walter - created closely integrated support for his passionate singing, which featured dramatic shouts, swoops, and falsetto moans. His repertoire, much of which he composed, included lyrics that were mournful ("Blow Wind Blow," "Trouble No More"), boastful ("Got My Mojo Working," "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man"), and frankly sensual (the unusual 15-bar blues "Rock Me"). In the process Waters became the foremost exponent of modern Chicago blues.

By 1951, Muddy Waters had established a full band with Otis Spann on piano, Little Walter on harmonica, Jimmy Rogers on the second guitar and Elgin Evans on drums. The band's recordings were increasingly popular in New Orleans, Chicago, and the Delta region in the United States, but it wasn't until 1958, when the group brought their electric blues sound to England, that Muddy Waters became an international star. After the English tour, Waters's fan base expanded and began to catch the attention of the rock 'n' roll community. His performance at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival was a particularly pivotal point in his career, as it caught the attention of a new fan base. Waters was able to adapt to the changing times, and his electric blues sound fit in well with the "love generation."

Waters continued to record with rock musicians throughout the 1960s and '70s and won his first Grammy Award in 1971 for the album "They Call Me Muddy Waters." After his 30-year run with Chess Records, he went his separate way in 1975, suing the record company for royalties after his final release with them: "Muddy Waters Woodstock Album." Waters signed on with Blue Sky Label after the split. He then captivated audiences with his appearance in The Band's farewell performance, known as "The Last Waltz," an exceptionally star-studded affair that was released as a film by Martin Scorsese in 1978.

Achievements

• Muddy Waters was an unrivaled singer of blues and a remarkable songwriter, his recordings and live performances proved to be immensely influential on a number of genres, including rhythm and blues, rock ‘n’ roll, hard rock, jazz, and even folk.
  
  He, along with his bandmates, recorded numerous blues classics, such as the singles "I Just Want to Make Love to You," "I'm Ready," "Hoochie Coochie Man," "Trouble No More," "Forty Days and Forty Nights" and "You Shook Me," to name a few. He also released several studio albums, live albums, and compilation albums including 'Folk Singer,' 'Electric Mud,' 'After the Rain,' 'Fathers and Sons,' 'The London Muddy Waters Sessions,' 'Hard Again,' 'King Bee,' 'The Real Folk Blues,' 'The Anthology,' 'At Newport 1960' and 'Live at the Checkerboard Lounge, Chicago 1981.'
  
  He was known to work with renowned labels like Columbia Records and Aristocrat Records, Waters had tremendous influence not only on the blues and rhythm and blues genres but also on hard rock, rock and roll, jazz, folk music, and country music. Talking about his awards and accolades, the American musician won many Grammy Awards and Blues Foundation Awards in his career. He was inducted to the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Works

More photos

• music

  • Muddy Waters Sings Big Bill Broonzy 1960
  • Folk Singer 1964
  • Muddy, Brass & The Blues 1966
  • Electric Mud 1968
  • After The Rain 1969
  • Fathers & Sons 1969
  • The London Muddy Waters Sessions 1972
  • Can't Get No Grindin' 1973
  • Unk In Funk 1974
  • The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album 1975
  • Hard Again 1977
  • I'm Ready LP 1978
  • King Bee 1981

Religion

Muddy Waters recalled his introduction with the church "I used to belong to the church. I was a good Baptist, singing in the church. So I got all of my good moanings and trembling to go on for me right out of the church."

Religious references and spiritual forces sometimes haunt Waters' songs, not as redemptive themes but as potent influences or supernatural powers.

Views

Quotations: "My blues are so simple, but so few people can play it right."

"Man, you don't know how I felt that afternoon when I heard that VOICE and it was my own VOICE."

"If you got something you don't want other people to know, keep it in your pocket."

"I went to school, but they didn't give you too much schooling because just as soon as you were big enough, you get to work in the fields. I guess I was a big boy for my age."

"I was always singing the way I felt, and maybe I didn't exactly know it, but I just didn't like the way things were down there-in Mississippi."

"I wanted to get out of Mississippi in the worst way. Go back? What I want to go back for?"

"I stone got crazy when I saw somebody run down them strings with a bottleneck. My eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and I said that I had to learn."

"I got up one Christmas morning and we didn't have anything to eat. We didn't have an apple, we didn't have an orange, we didn't have a cake, we didn't have anything."

"I got that first record out, it came out in '47... Then my name began to ring around. I began to take over. From that point, I tell you, Chicago was in my hand, all the more time that those guys had to listen to me."

"I been in the blues all my life. I'm still delivering 'cause I got a long memory."

"I wanted to definitely be a musician or a good preacher or a heck of a baseball player. I couldn't play ball too good - I hurt my finger, and I stopped that. I couldn't preach, and well, all I had left was getting into the music thing."

"If I had a million dollars, I just wouldn't just completely set back. I'd have to get out there and show my face to all these good people who like me, I have to get out there and show my face. The only thing that would set me back if I get sick or something or pass away, that's all you can do about that you know. But as long as I got my health goin' pretty good, I'll show up around here."

"Of course that was my idol, Son House. I think he did a lot for the Mississippi slide down there."

"I rambled all the time. I was just like that, like a rollin' stone."

Personality

Waters was given the nickname "Muddy" as he loved playing in muddy water.

In the early 1940s, Muddy Waters joined Silas Green Tent Show. This gave him the opportunity of traveling around. The more he traveled the better he got. This also motivated his desire to play blues music to his audience. Around this time, the likes of John Work and Alan Lomax came across the works of Waters and grew interested. As a result, they convinced him to make his first recording.

Interests

• Music, playing the guitar

• Music & Bands

  Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Son House

Connections

In 1940 Muddy Waters married Geneva Wade. She died of cancer on March 15, 1973. Gaining custody of some of his children, he moved them into his home, eventually buying a new house in Westmont, Illinois. Years later, he traveled to Florida and met his future wife, 19-year-old Marva Jean Brooks, whom he nicknamed "Sunshine."

Father:

Ollie Morganfield

McKinley's father, Ollie Morganfield, was a farmer and a blues guitar player who separated from the family shortly after Waters was born.

Mother:

Berta Jones Morganfield

When Waters was just 3 years old, his mother, Bertha Jones, died.

Wife:

Marva Jean Brooks Morganfield

late wife:

Geneva Wade Morganfield

1915-1973

Son:

Joseph Morganfield

Son:

Big Bill Morganfield

Son:

Larry Morganfield

grandmother:

Delia Jones

Muddy Waters was raised by his grandmother.

colleague:

Little Walter Jacobs

Little Walter Jacobs played the harmonica in the band.

colleague:

Jimmy Rogers

Jimmy Rogers played the guitar in the band.

colleague:

Elga Edmonds

Elga Edmonds (also known as Elgin Evans) played the drums.

colleague:

Otis Spann

Otis Spann was a member of the band. He played the piano.

colleague:

Willie Dixon

The band recorded several blues classics, some with the bassist and songwriter Willie Dixon.

References

• The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine
  2001
• Rockin' in Time: A Social History of Rock and Roll
  2006
• Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta
  1982