Muddy Waters’s Biography — Free listening, videos, concerts, stats and photos at Last.fm Listeners Biography Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield, Issaquena County, Mississippi, April 4, 1913 - Westmont, Illinois, April 30, 1983) was an American blues musician and is generally considered "the father of Chicago Blues ." His career spanned over thirty years and he produced what are considered to be some of the finest blues songs ever, such as Hoochie Coochie Man , Mannish Boy and Got My Mojo Working . Muddy Waters is generally considered one of the most influential bluesmen of all time. His fondness for playing in mud earned him the nickname "Muddy" at an early age. He later changed it to "Muddy Water" and finally "Muddy Waters". Waters was born McKinley Morganfield in Issaquena County, Mississippi in 1913 (He later told people that he was born in 1915 in Rolling Fork, Mississippi; the reason for this remains unknown). His grandmother Della Grant raised him after his mother died in 1918.

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 voice, the dark coloration of his tone and his firm almost solid personality were all clearly derived from House," wrote Peter Guralnick in Feel Like Going Home, but the embellishments which he added, the imaginative slide technique and more agile rhythms, were closer to Johnson." In 1940 Waters moved to St. Louis before playing with Silas Green a year later and returning back to Mississippi. In the early part of the decade he ran a juke house, complete with gambling, moonshine, a jukebox and live music courtesy of Muddy himself. In the Summer of 1941 Alan Lomax came to Stovall, Mississippi, on behalf of the Library of Congress to record various country blues musicians. "He brought his stuff down and recorded me right in my house," Waters recalled in Rolling Stone, "and when he played back the first song I sounded just like anybody's records.

Man, you don't know how I felt that Saturday afternoon when I heard that voice and it was my own voice. Later on he sent me two copies of the pressing and a check for twenty bucks, and I carried that record up to the corner and put it on the jukebox. Just played it and played it and said, `I can do it, I can do it.'" Lomax came back again in July of 1942 to record Waters again. Both sessions were eventually released as Down On Stovall's Plantation on the Testament label. In 1943 Waters headed north to Chicago in hopes of becoming a full-time professional. He lived with a relative for a short period while driving a truck and working in a factory by day and playing at night. Big Bill Broonzy was the leading bluesman in Chicago until his death in 1958 and the city was a very competitive market for a newcomer to become established. Broonzy helped Waters out by letting him open Broonzy's show in the rowdy clubs. In 1945 Waters's uncle gave him his first electric guitar, which enabled him to be heard above the noisy crowds.

In 1946 Waters recorded some tunes for Mayo Williams at Columbia but they were never released. Later that year he began recording for Aristocrat, a newly-formed label run by two brothers, Leonard and Phil Chess. In 1947 Waters played guitar with Sunnyland Slim on piano on the cuts "Gypsy Woman" and "Little Anna Mae." These were also shelved, but in 1948 Waters's "I Can't Be Satisfied" and "I Feel Like Going Home" became big and his popularity in clubs began to take off. Soon after, Aristocrat changed their name to Chess and Waters's signature tune, "Rollin' Stone", became a smash hit. The Chess brothers would not allow Waters to use his own musicians (Jimmy Rogers and Blue Smitty) in the studio; instead he was only provided with a backing bass by Big Crawford. However, by 1952 Waters was recording with perhaps the best blues group ever: Little Walter Jacobs on harmonica; Jimmy Rogers on guitar; Elgin Evans on drums; Otis Spann on piano; Big Crawford on bass; and Waters handling vocals and second guitar.

The band recorded a string of blues classics during the early 1950s with the help of bassist/songwriter Willie Dixon. "Hoochie Coochie Man" (Number 8 on the R&B charts), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Number 4), and "I'm Ready". These three were "the most macho songs in his repertoire," wrote Robert Palmer in Rolling Stone. "Muddy would never have composed anything so unsubtle. But they gave him a succession of showstoppers and an image, which were important for a bluesman trying to break out of the grind of local gigs into national prominence." Waters reigned over the 1950s Chicago blues scene; he was its most popular artist and led its tightest band, fueled by hits from Willie Dixon, its strongest composer. On all these fronts, however, Waters contended with fierce competition from the gravel-voiced singer Howlin' Wolf. Wolf's band rivaled Waters's all-star lineup, notably featuring the now-legendary guitarist Hubert Sumlin. Wolf also competed with Waters for the songwriting attention of Willie Dixon and recorded a large number of Dixon tunes.

Nonetheless, Waters consistently retained an edge in popularity and esteem. Both Waters and Wolf are held in immense regard by modern rock and blues aficionados, but Waters scored far more chart hits and is generally considered to be the more commercially successful and the more well-known of the two; especially to the casual listener. By 1954, Waters was at the height of his career. "By the time he achieved his popular peak, Muddy Waters had become a shouting, declamatory kind of singer who had forsaken his guitar as a kind of anachronism and whose band played with a single pulsating rhythm," wrote Guralnick in his Listener's Guide. The success of Waters's ensemble paved the way for others in his group to break away and enjoy their own solo careers. In 1952 Little Walter left when his single "Juke" became a hit (although he would continue to play on Muddy's recording sessions until the late '50s), and in 1955 Rogers quit to work exclusively with his own band, which had been a sideline until that time.

Waters could never recapture the glory of his pre-1956 years as the pressures of being a leader led him to use various studio musicians for quite a few years thereafter. He headed to England in 1958 and shocked audiences (whose only previous exposure to blues had come via the acoustic folk/blues sounds of acts such as Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee and Big Bill Broonzy) with loud, amplified electric guitar and a thunderous beat. His performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960, which was recorded and released as his first live album (see At Newport 1960), helped to turn on a whole new generation to Waters' sound. He expressed dismay when he realized that members of his own race were turning their backs to the genre while a Caucasian audience had shown increasing respect for the blues. A major inspiration for the British beat explosion in the 1960s. However, for the better part of twenty years (since his last big hit in 1956, "I'm Ready") Waters was put on the back shelf by the Chess label and recorded albums with various "popular" themes: Brass And The Blues, Electric Mud, etc.

In 1972 he went back to England to record The London Muddy Waters Sessions with four hotshot rockers—Rory Gallagher, Steve Winwood, Rick Grech, and Mitch Mitchell — but their playing wasn't up to his standards. "These boys are top musicians, they can play with me, put the book before 'em and play it, you know," he told Guralnick. "But that ain't what I need to sell my people, it ain't the Muddy Waters sound. An if you change my sound, then you gonna change the whole man." Waters's sound was basically Delta country blues electrified, but his use of microtones, in both his vocals and slide playing, made it extremely difficult to duplicate and follow correctly. "When I plays onstage with my band, I have to get in there with my guitar and try to bring the sound down to me," he said in Rolling Stone. "But no sooner than I quit playing, it goes back to another, different sound. My blues look so simple, so easy to do, but it's not.

They say my blues is the hardest blues in the world to play." In 1977 Johnny Winter convinced his label, Blue Sky, to sign Waters, the beginning of a fruitful partnership. Waters's "comeback" LP, Hard Again, was recorded in just two days and was a return to original Chicago sound he had created 25 years earlier. Producer/guitarist Winter pushed Waters to his limit. Former Waters sideman James Cotton contributed harmonica on the Grammy Award-winning album and a brief but well received tour followed. "He sounds happy, energetic and out for business," stated Dan Oppenheimer in Rolling Stone. "In short, Muddy Waters is kicking in another mule's stall." The importance of Muddy Waters' 1977 album Hard Again cannot be overstated, and its place as a near universal favorite in the Muddy Waters catalog is no mistake. Recorded in the last decade of his life, it was the first studio collaboration between Waters and guitarist Johnny Winter, who acted as producer on his last four albums – the others are I'm Ready, King Bee, and Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live – for Blue Sky, a Columbia subsidiary.

The true revelation here is Waters, whose vigor and fire are renewed; he's hungry for the music and completely in possession of his prowess and power as the true King of the Blues. At 64, Waters was revving up for one final go and Winter recorded him like the champ he was. The Muddy Waters Blues Band was one of the crack outfits on the scene at the time and included guitarist Bob Margolin, pianist Pinetop Perkins, and drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith were on this session. Winter was on board playing guitar in addition to producing, and Waters asked James Cotton to play harp on the session and he brought his bassist Charles Calmese for the date. According to Margolin's amazingly warm and informative anecdotal liner notes, Waters never picked up his guitar during these sessions. It hardly matters, from the opening roar of "Mannish Boy," with shouts and hollers throughout, with incendiary guitars to the old-style Delta blues of "I Can't Be Satisfied," with a National steel solo by Winter to Cotton's screeching intro to "The Blues Had a Baby," to the moaning closer "Little Girl," Hard Again is rock solid.

Its live feel heralds back to the Chess days, and its cooperative musicianship and intimate, good time vibe have rarely been replicated since that time – and never on a major label. The expanded reissue includes one bonus track, an outtake called "Walking Through the Park," that could have been part of the original album without a problem – the other outtake ended up on King Bee. Margolin's notes state that while the album has been remastered, it was not remixed because its sound holds up. This has the feel of an old-time blues record and the listener can hear – even on CD – the sound of the wood room it was recorded in as well as the camaraderie of the players. Hard Again showcased Waters as a blues lion, and in its grooves lies all the evidence for the legend he remains. In 1978 Winter recruited Muddy's cohorts from the early '50s Walter Horton and Jimmy Rogers, and brought in the rest of Muddy's touring band at the time (harmonica player Jerry Portnoy, guitarist Luther Johnson, and bassist Calvin Jone) to record Waters's I'm Ready LP, which came close to the critical and commercial success of Hard Again.

The comeback continued in 1979 with the lauded LP Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live. "Muddy was loose for this one," wrote Jas Obrecht in Guitar Player, "and the result is the next best thing to being ringside at one of his foot-thumping, head-nodding, downhome blues shows." Accompanied by Johnny Winter and his band, Muddy Waters turns in an enthusiastic performance on Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live. The set list contains most of his biggest hits, and the sound quality and performances are mostly energetic. Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live is a nice addition to the Muddy Waters catalog, but it's not nearly as essential as his earlier work. King Bee the following year concluded Water's reign at Blue Sky and all four LPs turned out to be his biggest-selling albums ever. King Bee was the last album Muddy Waters recorded. Coming last in a trio of triumphant studio outings, and produced by Johnny Winter, it is also a mixed bag. During the sessions for King Bee, Waters, his manager, and his band were all in dispute over money.

According to the liner notes by Bob Margolin, the conflict arose from Waters' health being on the wane and him playing less. The bandmembers wanted more money for the fewer gigs they did play in order to make ends meet. Ultimately a split occurred and the band quit. Because of the tensions in the studio preceding the split, Winter felt the sessions had not produced enough solid material to yield an entire album. He subsequently filled out King Bee with outtakes from the Hard Again sessions. For the listener, King Bee is a leaner and meaner record. None of the good-time exuberance present on the previous two outings is present here. This is blues, direct and immediate, a snarling, growling album. The title track, "Mean Old Frisco," "Sad Sad Day," and "I Feel Like Going Home," are all solid, razor-sharp blues with killer ensemble work and Waters in fine voice. The Sony Legacy issue features completely remastered sound and Margolin's candid notes, but it also hosts two bonus tracks from the King Bee sessions that Winter didn't see fit to release the first time.

There's a redo of "I Won't Go Down," a cut from the '50s that Waters sings in his lower baritone roar, and "Clouds in My Heart," a deep, long, sad blues that is one of the great unearthed treasures in Waters catalog. This cut alone with all of its deep emotion and the sound of a band trying to hold the storm of emotions in check and failing is a masterpiece and one of the most amazing blues tunes of the last 30 years. While King Bee may have been considered last and least of Waters' Columbia albums, it is more than worth reconsidering. In 1983 Waters died peacefully and unexpectedly in his sleep, aged 70. At his funeral, throngs of blues musicians showed up to pay tribute to one of the true originals of the art form. "Muddy was a master of just the right notes," John Hammond Jr., told Guitar World. "It was profound guitar playing, deep and simple. . . . more country blues transposed to the electric guitar, the kind of playing that enhanced the lyrics, gave profundity to the words themselves." Following Waters's death, B.B.

King told Guitar World, "It's going to be years and years before most people realize how great he was to American music." Two years after his death, the city that made Muddy Waters (and vice versa) honored their father by changing the name of 43rd Street to Muddy Waters Drive. He is the father of blues musicians Big Bill Morganfield and Larry "Mud Morganfield" Williams. Attesting to the historic place of Muddy Waters in the development of the blues in Mississippi, a Mississippi Blues Trail marker has been placed in Clarksdale by the Mississippi Blues Commission designating the site of Muddy Waters' cabin to commemorate his importance. Grammy Awards Muddy Waters and The Rolling Stones | The Rolling Stones Filmed November 1981 Released July 2012 Muddy Waters and The Rolling Stones Amazon Italy On 22 November 1981, in the middle of their mammoth American tour, the Rolling Stones arrived at Chicago. Long influenced by Muddy Waters and the Chicago blues, members of the band paid a visit to Buddy guy’s club, the checkerboard lounge, to see the legendary Bluesman perform.

It didn’t take long before Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Ian Stewart were joining in on stage and later Buddy Guy, Junior Wells and Lefty Dizz also joined in the fun. It was a unique occasion that was fortunately recorded and captured on camera. With sound newly mixed by Bob Clearmountain this amazing night is now being made available as an official release for all blues fans to enjoy. 1) Sweet Little Angel 2) Flip Flop And Fly 3) Muddy Waters Introduction 4) You Don’t Have To Go 5) Country Boy 6) Baby Please Don’t Go 7) Hoochie Coochie Man Blues & Gospel - Muddy Waters BLUES & GOSPEL Recorded Live - The Lost Tapes ● CD $16.98 11 tracks +, 53 mins +, highly recommended Muddy, in top form, recorded live at Washington and Oregon Universities in 1971 with his great band of the era (George Smith, Pinetop Perkins, Sammy Lawhorn, Pee Wee Madison, Calvin Jones and Willie Smith).

The material is all familiar (Honey Bee/ Walking Thru The Park/ Just To Be With You/ Long Distance Call/ Crawlin' Kingsnake, etc) but Muddy does very fine versions - lacking the overindulgent histrionics of some of his later performances. The reason for the "+" on the tracks and times above is because if you have a computer with Windows 95 or 98 and a CD-ROM drive there is bonus video material - an interview conducted in a car which is marred by lack of knowledge on the part of the interviewer and a video of Long Distance Call. More video performances from these sessions are available on Vestapol 13085 "Muddy Waters In Concert, 1971" ($22.98) (FS) MUDDY WATERS: Crawlin' Kingsnake/ Got My Mojo Working/ Honey Bee/ Hoochie Coochie Man/ Just To Be With You/ Long Distance Call/ Mannish Boy/ Muddy's Introduction To '19 Years Old'/ She's 19 Years Old/ Trouble No More/ Walking Thru The Park 22 tracks, 61 minutes.

Recommended Not included in the Chess-MCA Muddy Waters box, this is not just a reissue of "Down on Stovall's Plantation", but an expanded album with a few previously unissued tracks. This was Muddy Waters when he was still McKinley Morganfield, before he had become urbanized in Chicago, when he was still steeped in the rural blues and its lifestyle of the Mississippi Delta where he grew up. The Alan Lomax recordings for the Library of Congress reveal a musician who knew who he was and what he wanted in life. Short interviews are interspersed between the music, most of it performed solo, a few with guest vocalists or second guitarists, all totally acoustic. The 16-page booklet features photos of Waters' cabin in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The liner notes are excellent, the music is pure history, and Muddy's spoken words offer a rare look into the early days of blues and its players' lifestyles.

( LK) MUDDY WATERS: 32-20 Blues/ Burr Clover Blues/ Burr Clover Farm Blues/ Country Blues (Number One)/ Country Blues (Number Two)/ I Be Bound To Write To You (First Version)/ I Be Bound To Write To You (Second Version)/ I Be's Troubled/ Interview #1/ Interview #2/ Interview #3/ Interview #4/ Joe Turner/ Pearly May Blues/ Ramblin' Kid Blues/ Ramblin' Kid Blues (partial)/ Rosalie/ Take a Walk With Me/ Why Don't You Live So God Can Use You/ You Got To Take Sick And Die Some Of These Days/ You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone (Number One)/ You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone (Number two) ● CD $10.98 8 tracks, 36 minutes, utter garbage or? This CD should be a total disgrace. Young Marshall Chess getting a chance to put one of his dad's then-fading Super Stars with a bunch of hack session-men trying to play psychedelic music.

Muddy's voice is strong & clear, but the arrangements are a total mess, with Gene Barge trying to play free jazz on tenor while a harp player overblows, wah-wah & fuzz guitars, a rhythm section playing a very wooden beat, & Muddy forced to cover Let's Spend The Night Together & a couple tunes written by the back-up group, including Herbert Harper's Free Press News (that's the entire title) which may be the most embarrassing thing in the Mud canon. Then there's the butchering of Muddy classics where, at the end of She's Alright, all of a sudden the band goes into a psychedelic version of My Girl!! But there's something fascinating about this mess, like watching a train wreck. The back-up group is the same as for Rotary Connection. Then there's the great picture section (originally a booklet in the LP version) of Muddy getting a natural (great shots of Muddy under a hair-drier with huge curlers & a hair-net). And MCA claims that this CD, reissue of Cadet Concept 314 from '68, is one of their most requested items to reissue!

(GM) MUDDY WATERS: Herbert Harper's Free Press News/ I Just Want To Make Love To You/ I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man/ Let's Spend The Night Together/ Mannish Boy/ She's Alright/ The Same Thing/ Tom Cat ● CD $10.98 14 tracks, 49 mins, very good Reissue of Chess 1483 from 1964 with 5 bonus cuts. "Folk Singer" was issued at the height of the `folk boom" and features Muddy performing some of his older songs along with songs from Sonny Boy Williamson, Johnny Temple and others accompanying himself on acoustic guitar with Buddy Guy/ acoustic guitar, Willie Dixon/ bass and Clifton James/ drums. A nice idea that doesn't come off thanks to the weird production values - Muddy's voice and guitar are heavily echoed which destroys the intimate feeling required for a "folk" album and the intimacy is further reduced by the wide stereo separation and the overemphasis on the drum - nothing wrong with James' playing - it should have been further back in the mix.

The two bonus tracks that follow the "Folk Singer" session are the best things here - Muddy is back with his band on Willie Dixon's The Same Thing and his own You Can't Lose What You You Never Had with great slide by Muddy and piano by Spann. The last three tracks are from a session with J.T. Brown on tenor sax and clarinet - decent performances but the sound is a bit messy. (FS) ● CD $10.98 13 tracks, highly recommended Newly remastered reissue of the classic live album Chess LP 1449 from 1960 featuring excerpts of Muddy and his band's performances at the Newport Jazz Festival in July of that year. Some great performances from Muddy and the band which included James Cotton, Pat Hare, Otis Spann, Andrew Stephenson and Francis Clay. Includes I Got My Brand On You/ Baby, Please Don't Go/ Tiger In Your Tank/ I've Got My Mojo Working, etc. This CD has four bonus cuts featuring the studio session from a few weeks prior to the concert where Muddy first recorded three of songs he subsequently performed live.

(FS) The Chess Box ● CD $49.98 This is the most impressive blues package ever put out by a major U.S. label. Although not as comprehensive as the Japanese box set of a few years ago (now out of print) this set is an extensive survey of the recordings of probably the greatest Chicago bluesmen covering recordings from 1947 through the early 70s. It includes a couple of surprises for owners of the Japanese set including the previously unissued Aristocrat track Good Lookin' Woman, an alternate take of Take The Bitter With The Sweet complete with studio dialogue between Muddy & Len Chess and a version of Black Night from the much berated "Muddy, Brass & The Blues" with the brass mixed out. The 72 tracks have all been newly remastered from original masters or, in some cases, from clean 78s. Included is a 32 page booklet with discographical information, notes by Robert Palmer & Mary Katherine Aldin plus photos and memorabilia. (FS) MUDDY WATERS: All Aboard (Alt. 'Fathers And Sons' Take)/ Baby Please Don't Go/ Bird Nest On The Ground/ Black Night (Hornless Alt.

Mix)/ Blow Wind Blow/ Blues Before Sunrise (With False Starts, Dialogue)/ Can't Get No Grindin' (What's The Matter With The Meal)/ Close To You/ Country Boy (Live)/ Diamonds At Your Feet/ Don't Go No Farther/ Double Trouble/ Elevate Me Mama (Alt.

Take)/ Evans Shuffle/ Evil/ Flood/ Forty Days And Forty Nights/ Going Down Slow (Live)/ Good Looking Woman/ Good Morning Little Schoolgirl/ Good News/ Got My Mojo Working/ Gypsy Woman/ Honey Bee/ Hoochie Coochie Man/ I Can't Be Satisfied/ I Feel Like Going Home/ I Feel So Good (Live)/ I Just Want To Make Love To You/ I Love The Life I Live, I Live The Life I Love/ I'm Ready/ Just To Be With You/ Little Geneva/ Long Distance Call/ Lonseome Road Blues/ Look What You Done/ Louisiana Blues/ Making Friends/ Mannish Boy/ Mean Disposition/ Mean Red Spider/ My Home Is In The Delta/ Myu Love Stirkes Like Lightning/ Rock Me/ Rollin' And Tumblin', Part 1/ Rolling Stone/ She Moves Me/ She's Into Something/ She's Nineteen Years Old/ Short Dress Woman/ Smokestack Lightnin'/ So Glad I'm Living/ Southbound Train/ Standing Around Crying/ Still A Fool/ Streamline Woman/ Stuff You Gotta Watch/ Sugar Sweet (Alt.

'Fathers And Sons' Take)/ Take The Bitter With The Sweet (Dialogue, False Start, Alt. Take)/ The Same Thing/ Things That I Used To Do/ Train Fare Home Blues/ Trouble No More/ Twenty Four Hours/ Walkin' Blues/ Walkin' Thru The Park/ Who's Gonna Be Your Sweet Man When I'm Gone (Original Hornless London Mix)/ You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had/ You Don't Have To Go (Alt. Take)/ You Need Love/ You Shook Me/ Young Fashioned Ways Paris, 1972 ● CD $11.98 11 tracks, 53 min., highly recommended Recorded during one of those Norman Granz JATP tours, this previously unissued Muddy Waters performance features his slide guitar, guitarist Louis Myers (who was subbing for an injured Sammy Lawhorn) and harmonica player George "Mojo" Buford. Probably recorded on June 5 (at The Salle Pleyel), Muddy is in excellent voice. Highlights include a 7 minute version of "Clouds in My Heart", "County Jail", and "Walkin' Blues" (with Mojo Buford not featured).

This is being released with permission from the Muddy Waters Estate. (EL) MUDDY WATERS: Blow Wind Blow/ Clouds In My Heart/ County Jail/ Got My Mojo Workin'/ Honey Bee/ Hoochie Coochie Man/ Introduction/ Lovin' Man/ Rollin''n'tumblin'/ Walkin' Blues/ Walking Thru The Park Live Recordings 1965-1973 ● CD $14.98 A nice selection of live performances - 7 recorded between 1965 and '68 and 3 from 1973. The earlier recordings are more interesting with spirited performances from Muddy and the band (Pinetop Perkins, Sammy Lawhorn, Pee Wee Madison, Carey Bell, Sonny Wimberly and Willie Smith) particularly on Rock Me and Blow Wind Blow. The '73 performances are decent but typical performances of the era with neither Muddy nor the band showing a great deal of enthusiasm. (FS) Just A Memory JAM 9130 Goin' Way Back ● CD $12.98 11 tracks, 44 mins, highly recommended A pleasant surprise this one!

Muddy & his band members recorded at their hotel in Montreal, Canada in 1967. But instead of the familiar group setting with overly familiar songs we get a series of acoustic performances. Muddy does five songs with Sammy Lawhorn on second guitar and, on one track, "Mojo" Buford on harmonica. Muddy reaches back to his first Aristocrat session and does fine versions of Gypsy Woman and Little Annie Mae and brings out his trusty slide for My Home Is On The Delta and Mean Disposition. Luther "Georgia Snake Boy" Johnson does 4 excellent sides and, surprise, surprise Otis Spann picks up the guitar and does two songs. Sound quality is unexceptional but not uncomfortable. Definitely worth checking out. (FS) Blues -- MUDDY WATERS MUDDY WATERS Muddy Waters Official Site Rolling Stone: Muddy Waters A postwar Chicago blues scene without the magnificent contributions of Muddy Waters is absolutely unimaginable. From the late '40s on, he eloquently defined the city's aggressive, swaggering, Delta-rooted sound with his declamatory vocals and piercing slide-guitar attack.

When he passed away in 1983, the Windy City would never quite recover. Like many of his contemporaries on the Chicago circuit, Waters was a product of the fertile Mississippi Delta. Born McKinley Morganfield in Rolling Fork, he grew up in nearby Clarksdale on Stovall's Plantation. His idol was the powerful Son House, a Delta patriarch whose flailing slide work and intimidating intensity Waters would emulate in his own fashion. Musicologist Alan Lomax traveled through Stovall's in August of 1941 under the auspices of the Library of Congress, in search of new talent for purposes of field recording. With the discovery of Morganfield, Lomax must have immediately known he'd stumbled across someone very special.

Setting up his portable recording rig in the Delta bluesman's house, Lomax captured for Library of Congress posterity Waters' mesmerizing rendition of "I Be's Troubled," which became his first big seller when he re-cut it a few years later for the Chess brothers' Aristocrat logo as "I Can't Be Satisfied." Lomax returned the next summer to record his bottleneck-wielding find more extensively, also cutting sides by the Son Simms Four (a string band that Waters belonged to). Waters was renowned for his blues-playing prowess across the Delta, but that was about it until 1943, when he left for the bright lights of Chicago. A tiff with "the bossman" apparently also had a little something to do with his relocation plans. By the mid-'40s, Waters' slide skills were becoming a recognized entity on Chicago's South side, where he shared a stage or two with pianists Sunnyland Slim and Eddie Boyd, and guitarist Blue Smitty.

Producer Lester Melrose, who still had the local recording scene pretty much sewn up in 1946, accompanied Waters into the studio to wax a date for Columbia, but the urban nature of the sides didn't electrify anyone in the label's hierarchy and remained unissued for decades. Sunnyland Slim played a large role in launching the career of Muddy Waters. The pianist invited him to provide accompaniment for his 1947 Aristocrat session that would produce "Johnson Machine Gun." One obstacle remained beforehand: Waters had a day gig delivering Venetian blinds. But he wasn't about to let such a golden opportunity slip through his talented fingers. He informed his boss that a fictitious cousin had been murdered in an alley, so he needed a little time off to take care of business. When Sunnyland had finished that auspicious day, Waters sang a pair of numbers, "Little Anna Mae" and "Gypsy Woman," that would become his own Aristocrat debut 78.

They were rawer than the Columbia stuff, but not as inexorably down-home as "I Can't Be Satisfied" and its flip, "I Feel Like Going Home" (the latter was his first national R&B hit in 1948). With Big Crawford slapping the bass behind Waters' gruff growl and slashing slide, "I Can't Be Satisfied" was such a local sensation that even Muddy Waters himself had a hard time buying a copy down on Maxwell Street. He assembled a band that was so tight and vicious on-stage that they were informally known as "the Headhunters"; they'd come into a bar where a band was playing, ask to sit in, and then "cut the heads" of their competitors with their superior musicianship. Little Walter, of course, would single-handily revolutionize the role of the harmonica within the Chicago blues hierarchy; Jimmy Rogers was an utterly dependable second guitarist; and Baby Face Leroy Foster could play both drums and guitar. On top of their instrumental skills, all four men could sing powerfully.

1951 found Waters climbing the R&B charts no less than four times, beginning with "Louisiana Blues," and continuing through "Long Distance Call," "Honey Bee," and "Still a Fool." Although it didn't chart, his 1950 classic "Rollin' Stone" provided a certain young British combo with a rather enduring name. Leonard Chess himself provided the incredibly unsubtle bass-drum bombs on Waters' 1952 smash "She Moves Me." "Mad Love," his only chart bow in 1953, is noteworthy as the first hit to feature the rolling piano of Otis Spann, who would anchor the Waters aggregation for the next 16 years. By this time, Foster was long gone from the band, but Rogers remained, and Chess insisted that Walter ? by then a popular act in his own right ? make nearly every Waters session into 1958 (why break up a winning combination?). There was one downside to having such a peerless band; as the ensemble work got tighter and more urbanized, Waters' trademark slide guitar was largely absent on many of his Chess waxings. Willie Dixon was playing an increasingly important role in Muddy Waters' success.

In addition to slapping his upright bass on Waters' platters, the burly Dixon was writing one future bedrock standard after another for him: "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man," "Just Make Love to Me," and "I'm Ready"; seminal performances all, and each blasted to the uppermost reaches of the R&B lists in 1954. When labelmate Bo Diddley borrowed Waters' swaggering beat for his strutting "I'm a Man" in 1955, Waters turned around and did him tit-for-tat by reworking the tune ever so slightly as "Mannish Boy" and enjoying his own hit. "Sugar Sweet," a pile-driving rocker with Spann's 88s anchoring the proceedings, also did well that year. 1956 brought three more R&B smashes: "Trouble No More," "Forty Days & Forty Nights," and "Don't Go No Farther." But rock & roll was quickly blunting the momentum of veteran blues aces like Waters; Chess was growing more attuned to the modern sounds of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, the Moonglows, and the Flamingos.

Ironically, it was Muddy Waters that had sent Berry to Chess in the first place. After that, there was only one more chart item, 1958's typically uncompromising (and metaphorically loaded) "Close to You." But Waters' Chess output was still of uniformly stellar quality, boasting gems like "Walking Thru the Park" (as close as he was likely to come to mining a rock & roll groove) and "She's Nineteen Years Old," among the first sides to feature James Cotton's harp instead of Walter's, in 1958. That was also the year that Muddy Waters and Spann made their first sojourn to England, where his electrified guitar horrified sedate Britishers accustomed to the folksy homilies of Big Bill Broonzy. Perhaps chagrined by the response, Waters paid tribute to Broonzy with a solid LP of his material in 1959. Cotton was apparently the bandmember that first turned Muddy on to "Got My Mojo Working," originally cut by Ann Cole in New York. Waters' 1956 cover was pleasing enough but went nowhere on the charts.

But, when the band launched into a supercharged version of the same tune at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival, Cotton and Spann put an entirely new groove to it, making it an instant classic (fortuitously, Chess was on hand to capture the festivities on tape). As the 1960s dawned, Muddy Waters' Chess sides were sounding a trifle tired. Oh, the novelty thumper "Tiger in Your Tank" packed a reasonably high-octane wallop, but his adaptation of Junior Wells' "Messin' With the Kid" (as "Messin' With the Man") and a less-than-timely "Muddy Waters Twist" were a long way removed indeed from the mesmerizing Delta sizzle that Waters had purveyed a decade earlier. Overdubbing his vocal over an instrumental track by guitarist Earl Hooker, Waters laid down an uncompromising "You Shook Me" in 1962 that was a step in the right direction. Drummer Casey Jones supplied some intriguing percussive effects on another 1962 workout, "You Need Love," which Led Zeppelin liked so much that they purloined it as their own creation later on.

In the wake of the folk-blues boom, Waters reverted to an acoustic format for a fine 1964 LP, Folk Singer, that found him receiving superb backing from guitarist Buddy Guy, Dixon on bass, and drummer Clifton James. In October, he ventured overseas again as part of the Lippmann- and Rau-promoted American Folk Blues Festival, sharing the bill with Sonny Boy Williamson, Memphis Slim, Big Joe Williams, and Lonnie Johnson. The personnel of the Waters band was much more fluid during the 1960s, but he always whipped them into first-rate shape. Guitarists Pee Wee Madison, Luther "Snake Boy" Johnson, and Sammy Lawhorn; harpists Mojo Buford and George Smith; bassists Jimmy Lee Morris and Calvin "Fuzz" Jones; and drummers Francis Clay and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith (along with Spann, of course) all passed through the ranks. In 1964, Waters cut a two-sided gem for Chess, "The Same Thing"/"You Can't Lose What You Never Had," that boasted a distinct 1950s feel in its sparse, reflexive approach.

Most of his subsequent Chess catalog, though, is fairly forgettable. Worst of all were two horrific attempts to make him a psychedelic icon. 1968's Electric Mud forced Waters to ape his pupils via an unintentionally hilarious cover of the Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together" (session guitarist Phil Upchurch still cringes at the mere mention of this album). After the Rain was no improvement the following year. Partially salvaging this barren period in his discography was the Fathers and Sons project, also done in 1969 for Chess, which paired Muddy Waters and Spann with local youngbloods Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield in a multi-generational celebration of legitimate Chicago blues. After a period of steady touring worldwide but little standout recording activity, Waters' studio fortunes were resuscitated by another of his legion of disciples, guitarist Johnny Winter. Signed to Blue Sky, a Columbia subsidiary, Waters found himself during the making of the first LP, Hard Again; backed by pianist Pinetop Perkins, drummer Willie Smith, and guitarist Bob Margolin from his touring band; Cotton on harp; and Winter's slam-bang guitar, Waters roared like a lion who had just awoken from a long nap.

Three subsequent Blue Sky albums continued the heartwarming back-to-the basics campaign. In 1980, his entire combo split to form the Legendary Blues Band; needless to note, he didn't have much trouble assembling another one (new members included pianist Lovie Lee, guitarist John Primer, and harpist Mojo Buford). By the time of his death in 1983, Muddy Waters' exalted place in the history of blues (and 20th-century popular music, for that matter) was eternally assured. The Chicago blues genre that he turned upside down during the years following World War II would never recover; and that's a debt we'll never be able to repay. -- Bill Dahl, All Music Guide LINKS Hoochie Coochie Man: Complete Chess Masters, Volume 2 - 1952-1958 - Microsoft Store Hoochie Coochie Man: Complete Chess Masters, Volume 2 - 1952-1958 2004 • 51 songs • Blues / Folk • Contemporary Blues • Hip-O Select / Chess The Vol.

2 designation of this limited-edition double CD may confuse some people, who might reasonably wonder where "Vol. 1" is. Actually, "Vol. 1" was Rollin' Stone: The Golden Anniversary Collection, which came out as a regular retail release in stores and covered Muddy Waters ' complete recorded output from 1947 through September of 1952. Picking up right where that release left off, this much more elaborately packaged 51-track double-CD set captures Muddy at the peak of his game, dominating the Chicago blues scene (and, almost equally so, the national blues dialogue) and bursting with understated confidence and energy -- in his playing as well as his singing -- in the early years. The set takes listeners song by song across the mid-'50s, coinciding with the arrival of rock & roll and the subtle changes the latter caused in even his music -- switching away from playing guitar and turning that responsibility over to younger musicians in the course of trying to compete in a world dominated by ever younger rock & rollers.

The producers have done an impressive technical job, the sound on the individual songs being consistently clean and sharp, even if many of the early-'50s masters don't exactly lend themselves to high-resolution playback. They're also offering a large handful of alternate takes scattered throughout the two discs, illuminating Muddy and his band working through some of these pieces to get to the finished versions with which they were happy. The annotation by Mary Katherine Aldin paints a vivid picture of the participants (especially Willie Dixon ) and the backgrounds to the individual sessions and songs -- her notes are appended by a very handsome color and black-and-white photo array and a full sessionography. One factor that may cause potential buyers to hesitate on this set is the cost -- as a Hip-O Select release it lists for $50, and that is steep; on the other hand, the listening will keep any serious blues fan busy for quite a while. And given the fact that Muddy Waters only recorded singles in those days -- he didn't do an actual album session until the Big Bill Broonzy tribute LP at the end of the decade -- a set like this is the logical way to absorb his work from this phase of his career.

~ Bruce Eder Hoochie Coochie Man: The Complete Chess Masters, Vol. 2, 1952-1958 by Muddy Waters on Apple Music 51 Songs Album Review The Vol. 2 designation of this limited-edition double CD may confuse some people, who might reasonably wonder where "Vol. 1" is. Actually, "Vol. 1" was Rollin' Stone: The Golden Anniversary Collection, which came out as a regular retail release in stores and covered Muddy Waters' complete recorded output from 1947 through September of 1952. Picking up right where that release left off, this much more elaborately packaged 51-track double-CD set captures Muddy at the peak of his game, dominating the Chicago blues scene (and, almost equally so, the national blues dialogue) and bursting with understated confidence and energy — in his playing as well as his singing — in the early years.

The set takes listeners song by song across the mid-'50s, coinciding with the arrival of rock & roll and the subtle changes the latter caused in even his music — switching away from playing guitar and turning that responsibility over to younger musicians in the course of trying to compete in a world dominated by ever younger rock & rollers. The producers have done an impressive technical job, the sound on the individual songs being consistently clean and sharp, even if many of the early-'50s masters don't exactly lend themselves to high-resolution playback. They're also offering a large handful of alternate takes scattered throughout the two discs, illuminating Muddy and his band working through some of these pieces to get to the finished versions with which they were happy. The annotation by Mary Katherine Aldin paints a vivid picture of the participants (especially Willie Dixon) and the backgrounds to the individual sessions and songs — her notes are appended by a very handsome color and black-and-white photo array and a full sessionography. One factor that may cause potential buyers to hesitate on this set is the cost — as a Hip-O Select release it lists for $50, and that is steep; on the other hand, the listening will keep any serious blues fan busy for quite a while.

And given the fact that Muddy Waters only recorded singles in those days — he didn't do an actual album session until the Big Bill Broonzy tribute LP at the end of the decade — a set like this is the logical way to absorb his work from this phase of his career. Customer Reviews by Loxatl Muddy Waters never ceases to amaze. This is a solid compilation of some of his best works. The sound quality is as good as it gets with Muddy and is a must have for folks just starting to collect the genre. blues Born: April 4, 1915 in Rolling Fork, MS Genre: Blues Years Active: '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s Muddy Waters was the single most important artist to emerge in post-war American blues.

A peerless singer, a gifted songwriter, an able guitarist, and leader of one of the strongest bands in the genre (which became a proving ground for a number of musicians who would become legends in their own right), Waters absorbed the influences of rural blues from the Deep South and moved them uptown, injecting his music with a fierce, electric energy and helping pioneer the Chicago Blues style that would come... Top Albums and Songs by Muddy Waters 1. PBS - American Roots Music : The Songs and the Artists - Muddy Waters MUDDY WATERS Muddy Waters is the critical connection between country and urban blues, a pioneer who amplified the Mississippi Delta sound, gave it a backbeat, put a band behind it and insured the blues a place in the modern American roots tradition. A provocative singer with a hellbent, grisly voice, Waters, whose real name was McKinley Morganfield, was also a potent slide guitar player and a bandleader who surrounded himself with equally innovative players. Waters was born in 1915 in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, just outside of Clarksdale. He first recorded in 1941 for the Library of Congress after being discovered by folklorist Alan Lomax .

Two years later, Waters left Mississippi for Chicago's vibrant blues scene. In 1944 Waters began to play an electric guitar, giving his sound a louder, more jagged edge. He produced a few recordings for Columbia in 1946, but it wasn't until 1948 that he made his mark. Although his first record ("I Can't Be Satisfied"/"Feel Like Going Home") was in a Delta country blues style, subsequent recordings reveal a more urban electric sound. Fueled by the powerhouse sound of his band, Waters cut a monumental collection of electric blues sides that included "I Just Want to Make Love to You," "Hoochie Coochie Man" and "Got My Mojo Working." From 1951 through 1960, the golden decade of Chicago blues and Chess Records, Waters ruled the blues roost. A trip to England in 1958 with pianist Otis Spann made Waters a blues giant on the other side of the Atlantic as well. In the '60s Waters recorded both acoustic and electric blues, reaching beyond his loyal African-American audience.

By the end of the decade he had penetrated rock & roll, playing venues such as the Fillmore East and West, and opening for the Rolling Stones . The '70s were a disastrous decade for the blues as cursory listeners abandoned the music and some of the top blues performers entered artistic slumps. Waters, however, maintained his blues integrity by working with Johnny Winter, recording some of the best albums of his career before passing in 1983. His importance as a blues artist is rivaled only by Robert Johnson's and B.B. King's . Muddy Waters on Apple Music To preview a song, mouse over the title and click Play. Open iTunes to buy and download music. Biography Muddy Waters was the single most important artist to emerge in post-war American blues.

A peerless singer, a gifted songwriter, an able guitarist, and leader of one of the strongest bands in the genre (which became a proving ground for a number of musicians who would become legends in their own right), Waters absorbed the influences of rural blues from the Deep South and moved them uptown, injecting his music with a fierce, electric energy and helping pioneer the Chicago Blues style that would come to dominate the music through the 1950s, ‘60s, and '70s. The depth of Waters' influence on rock as well as blues is almost incalculable, and remarkably, he made some of his strongest and most vital recordings in the last five years of his life. Waters was born McKinley Morganfield, and historians argue about some details of his early life; while he often told reporters he was born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi on April 4, 1915, researchers have uncovered census records and personal documents that would pin the year of his birth at 1913 or 1914, and others have cited the place of his birth as Jug's Corner, a town in Mississippi's Issaquena County.

What is certain is that Morganfield's mother died when he just three years old, and from then on he was raised on the Stovall Plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi by his grandmother, Della Grant. Grant is said to have given young Morganfield the nickname "Muddy" because he liked to play in the mud as a boy, and the name stuck, with "Water" and "Waters" being tacked on a few years later. The rural South was a hotbed for the blues in the '20s and ‘30s, and young Muddy became entranced with the music when he discovered a neighbor had a phonograph and records by the likes of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, and Tampa Red. As Muddy became more deeply immersed in the blues, he took up the harmonica; he was performing locally at parties and fish fries by the age of 13, sometimes with guitarist Scott Bohanner, who lived and worked in Stovall.

In his early teens, Muddy was introduced to the sound of contemporary Delta blues artists, such as Son House, Robert Johnson, and Charley Patton; their music inspired Waters to switch instruments, and he bought a guitar when he was 17, learning to play in the bottleneck style. Within a few years, he was performing on his own and with a local string band, the Son Simms Four; he also opened a juke joint on the Stovall grounds, where fellow sharecroppers could listen to music, enjoy a drink or a snack, and gamble. Waters became a fixture in Mississippi, performing with the likes of Big Joe Williams and Robert Nighthawk, and in the late summer of 1941, musical archivists Alan Lomax and John Work III arrived in Mississippi with a portable recording rig, eager to document local blues talent for the Library of Congress (it's said they were hoping to locate Robert Johnson, only to learn he had died three years earlier).

Lomax and Work were strongly impressed with Waters, and recorded several sides of him performing in his juke joint; two of the songs were released as a 78, and when Waters received two copies of the single and $20 from Lomax, it encouraged him to seriously consider a professional career. In July 1943, Lomax returned to record more material with Waters; these early sessions with Lomax were collected on the album Down On Stovall's Plantation in 1966, and a 1994 reissue of the material, The Complete Plantation Recordings, won a Grammy award. In 1943, Waters decided to pull up stakes and relocate to Chicago, Illinois in hopes of making a living off his music. (He moved to St. Louis for a spell in 1940, but didn't care for it.) Waters drove a truck and worked at a paper plant by day, and at night struggled to make a name for himself, playing house parties and any bar that would have him.

Big Bill Broonzy reached out to Waters and helped him land better gigs; Muddy had recently switched to electric guitar to be better heard in noisy clubs, which added a new power to his cutting slide work. By 1946, Waters had come to the attention of Okeh Records, who took him into the studio to record but chose not to release the results. A session that same year for 20th Century Records resulted in just one tune being issued as the B-side of a James "Sweet Lucy" Carter release, but Waters fared better with Aristocrat Records, a Chicago-based label founded by brothers Leonard and Phil Chess. The Chess Brothers began recording Waters in 1947, and while a few early sides with Sunnyland Slim failed to make an impression, his second single for Aristocrat as a headliner, "I Can't Be Satisfied" b/w "(I Feel Like) Goin' Home," became a significant hit and launched Waters as a star on the Chicago blues scene.

Initially, the Chess Brothers recorded Waters with trusted local musicians (including Earnest "Big" Crawford and Alex Atkins), but for his live work, Waters had recruited a band which included Little Walter on harmonica, Jimmy Rogers on guitar, and Baby Face Leroy Foster on drums (later replaced by Elgin Evans), and in person, Waters and his group earned their reputation as the most powerful blues band in town, with Waters' passionate vocals and guitar matched by the force of his combo. By the early '50s, the Chess Brothers (who had changed the name of their label from Aristocrat to Chess Records in 1950) began using Waters' stage band in the studio, and Little Walter in particular became a favorite with blues fans and a superb foil for Waters. Otis Spann joined Waters' group on piano in 1953, and he would become the anchor for the band well into the '60s, after Little Walter and Jimmy Rogers had left to pursue solo careers.

In the '50s, Waters released some of the most powerful and influential music in the history of electric blues, scoring hits with numbers like "Rollin' and Tumblin,'" "I'm Ready," "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man," "Mannish Boy," "Trouble No More," "Got My Mojo Working," and "I Just Want to Make Love to You" which made him a frequent presence on the R&B charts. By the end of the '50s, while Waters was still making fine music, his career was going into a slump. The rise of rock & roll had taken the spotlight away from more traditional blues acts in favor of younger and rowdier acts (ironically, Waters had headlined some of Alan Freed's early "Moondog" package shows), and Waters' first tour of England in 1958 was poorly received by many U.K. blues fans, who were expecting an acoustic set and were startled by the ferocity of Waters' electric guitar. Waters began playing more acoustic music informed by his Mississippi Delta heritage in the years that followed, even issuing an album titled Muddy Waters: Folk Singer in 1964.

However, the jolly irony was that British blues fans would soon rekindle interest in Waters and electric Chicago blues; as the rise of the British Invasion made the world aware of the U.K. rock scene, the nascent British blues scene soon followed, and a number of Waters' U.K. acolytes became international stars, such as Eric Clapton, John Mayall, Alexis Korner, and a modestly successful London act who named themselves after Muddy's 1950 hit "Rollin' Stone." While Waters was still leading a fine band that delivered live (and included the likes of Pinetop Perkins on piano and James Cotton on harmonica), Chess Records was moving more toward the rock, soul, and R&B marketplace, and seemed eager to market him to white rock fans, a notion that reached its nadir in 1968 with Electric Mud, in which Waters was paired up with a psychedelic rock band (featuring guitarists Pete Cosey and Phil Upchurch) for rambling and aimless jams on Waters' blues classics.

1969's Fathers and Sons was a more inspired variation on this theme, with Waters playing alongside reverential white blues rockers such as Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield; 1971's The London Muddy Waters Sessions was less impressive, featuring fine guitar work from Rory Gallagher but uninspired contributions from Steve Winwood, Rick Grech, and Georgie Fame. Curiously, while Chess Records helped Waters make some of the finest blues records of the '50s and ‘60s, it was the label's demise that led to his creative rebirth. In 1969, the Chess Brothers sold the label to General Recorded Tape, and the label went through a long, slow commercial decline, finally folding in 1975. (Waters would become one of several Chess artists who sued the label for unpaid royalties in its later years.) Johnny Winter, a longtime Waters fan, heard the blues legend was without a record deal, and was instrumental in getting Waters signed to Blue Sky Records, a CBS-distributed label that had become his recording home.

Winter produced the sessions for Waters' first Blue Sky release, and sat in with a band comprised of members of Waters' road band (including Bob Margolin and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith) along with James Cotton on harp and Pinetop Perkins on piano. 1977's Hard Again was a triumph, sounding as raw and forceful as Waters' classic Chess sides, with a couple extra decades of experience informing his performances, and it was rightly hailed as one of the finest albums Waters ever made while sparking new interest in his music. (It also earned him a Grammy award for Best Traditional or Ethnic Folk Recording.) Waters also dazzled music fans when he appeared at the Band's celebrated farewell concert on Thanksgiving 1976 at the invitation of Levon Helm, who had helped produce one of his last Chess releases, The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album. Muddy delivered a stunning performance of "Mannish Boy" that became one of the highlights of Martin Scorsese's 1978 concert film The Last Waltz.

Between Hard Again and The Last Waltz, Waters enjoyed a major career boost, and he found himself touring again for large and enthusiastic crowds, sharing stages with the likes of Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones, and cutting two more well-received albums with Winter as producer, 1978's I'm Ready and 1981's King Bee, as well as a solid 1979 concert set, Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live. Waters' health began to fail him in 1982, and his final live appearance came in the fall of that year, when he sang a few songs at an Eric Clapton show in Florida. Waters died quietly of heart failure at his home in Westmont, Illinois on April 30, 1983. Since then, both Chicago and Westmont have named streets in Muddy's honor, he's appeared on a postage stamp, a marker commemorates the site of his childhood home in Clarksdale, and he appeared as a character in the 2008 film Cadillac Records, played by Jeffrey Wright. ~ Mark Deming Top Albums

Question: 'Hoochie Coochie Man' and 'Got my mojo working' were originally recorded by which Chicago blues singer?
Answer: Muddy Waters