Muddy Waters
The man who plugged the Delta into Chicago and electrified the blues
McKinley Morganfield grew up on Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, raised largely by his grandmother, who gave him the nickname Muddy after his childhood habit of playing in the creek mud. He started on harmonica, then bought his first guitar, a Stella ordered from the Sears catalog, at around seventeen. Studying the records and live playing of Son House and Robert Johnson, he became a sought-after player at local parties and juke joints while working the plantation fields during the day.
In 1941 and 1942 folklorist Alan Lomax recorded him at Stovall for the Library of Congress, and hearing his own voice on disc convinced him he could make a career of music. In 1943 he moved to Chicago, taking day jobs while playing house parties. Around 1944 he switched to electric guitar so he could cut through the noise of crowded clubs. After an unreleased Columbia session in 1946, he signed with Aristocrat, the label that became Chess, and in 1948 scored with I Can't Be Satisfied.
Through the early 1950s he built the most feared band in Chicago, featuring at various times Little Walter, Jimmy Rogers, Otis Spann and Willie Dixon. Hits such as Rollin' Stone, Hoochie Coochie Man, I Just Want to Make Love to You and Mannish Boy defined the amplified, ensemble-driven Chicago sound. His 1958 tour of England startled audiences expecting acoustic folk blues, and his set at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival, captured on record, introduced him to a young white audience in America.
The British bands he inspired, above all the Rolling Stones, who took their name from his song, kept his reputation growing through the 1960s. Fathers and Sons in 1969, with Michael Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield, became his best-selling album. In 1976 he appeared in The Band's farewell concert, The Last Waltz, and from 1977 Johnny Winter produced a run of albums beginning with the Grammy-winning Hard Again that revived his career. He won six Grammys in all and died in his sleep in 1983.
The 10 greatest Muddy Waters solos
- 1Muddy Waters · solo by Muddy Waters · 1950
- 2Muddy Waters · solo by Muddy Waters · 1948
- 3Muddy Waters · solo by Muddy Waters · 1951
- 4Muddy Waters · solo by Muddy Waters · 1951
- 5Muddy Waters · solo by Muddy Waters · 1951
- 6Muddy Waters · solo by Muddy Waters · 1951
- 7Muddy Waters · solo by Muddy Waters · 1950
- 8Muddy Waters · solo by Muddy Waters · 1950
- 9Muddy Waters · solo by Muddy Waters · 1941
- 10Muddy Waters · solo by Muddy Waters · 1977
The sound
Muddy Waters played slide with a metal tube on his little finger, often in open tunings, and his genius lay in economy. Rather than flurries of notes, he placed a single bent, quivering tone exactly where it hurt most, letting sustain and a slightly overdriven amp do the talking. His phrases answer his vocal lines like a second voice, a habit carried straight from the Delta. As his band grew, he played less and led more, dropping stinging fills and slashing slide stabs into dense arrangements while his huge, commanding voice sat on top.
- Stella acoustic (guitar) His first guitar, bought from the Sears-Roebuck catalog as a teenager in Mississippi.
- Fender Telecaster (guitar) His signature electric from the late 1950s onward, famously refinished in red and used for slide and fills for the rest of his career.
- Gibson Les Paul Goldtop (guitar) Photographed with one during the 1950s Chess era.
- Metal slide (effect) Worn on the little finger, leaving his other fingers free for fretted notes and chords.
- Fender tube combo amplifiers (amp) Pushed loud enough to add grit and sustain that let his slide notes sing over a full band.
Covers
- Got My Mojo Working, originally by Ann Cole He turned a recent R&B number into his own anthem, so thoroughly that most listeners assume he wrote it.
- Trouble No More, originally by Sleepy John Estes (as Someday Baby Blues) A rural 1930s blues reborn as a tight, strutting Chicago shuffle.
- Mannish Boy, originally by Bo Diddley (as I'm a Man) Muddy answered Bo Diddley's boast with a rewrite so commanding that it eclipsed its model.
- Walkin' Blues, originally by Son House / Robert Johnson A Delta standard he had played since his plantation days, now amplified and tougher.
- Rollin' Stone, originally by Traditional (Catfish Blues) He reshaped the old Catfish Blues melody into a brooding solo showcase for electric guitar.
- The Blues Had a Baby and They Named It Rock and Roll, originally by Brownie McGhee A cheeky, rollicking reminder of exactly whose music rock and roll grew out of.
Timeline
- 1913 Born McKinley Morganfield in Issaquena County, Mississippi
- 1941 Recorded by Alan Lomax at Stovall Plantation for the Library of Congress
- 1943 Moves north to Chicago
- 1948 I Can't Be Satisfied becomes his first hit on Aristocrat
- 1950 Records Rollin' Stone for the newly renamed Chess label
- 1958 Tours England, jolting audiences with loud electric blues
- 1960 Plays the Newport Jazz Festival; the set becomes a landmark live album
- 1969 Fathers and Sons becomes his best-selling album
- 1977 Hard Again, produced by Johnny Winter, revives his career and wins a Grammy
- 1983 Dies in his sleep in Westmont, Illinois
Facts
- His birth name was McKinley Morganfield.
- His grandmother gave him the nickname Muddy because he liked to play in the mud as a small child.
- He played harmonica before he took up the guitar.
- His first guitar was a Stella he ordered from the Sears-Roebuck catalog.
- Alan Lomax's Library of Congress recordings of him were made on the plantation where he worked as a farmhand.
- He switched to electric guitar in Chicago mainly so he could be heard over noisy club crowds.
- The Rolling Stones took their name from his 1950 song Rollin' Stone.
- He steered a young Chuck Berry toward Leonard Chess, leading to Berry's Chess contract.
- He won six Grammy Awards during the 1970s and early 1980s.
- His sons Mud Morganfield and Big Bill Morganfield both became blues performers.