Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters - real name McKinley Morganfield - was born in
Rolling Fork, Mississippi in 1915 and was raised by his
grandparents (his parents separated when he was six months old).
His grandmother took him north to live with her on the Stovall
Plantation in the rich cotton lands near Clarksdale, Mississippi,
where John Lee Hooker and many other future blues stars grew to
maturity.
As a youngster, Muddy took up the harmonica, and that was the
instrument he played when he began performing at country suppers
and picnics in his early tens. He was singing with his own band at
the age of 15, and later took up guitar.
In 1941 he recorded for the Lomax Brothers' Library of
Congress recordings, and two years later headed north to Chicago.
After the war he began playing electric guitar and recorded for
Columbia before signing with Chess, for whom he recorded many many
blues tracks throughout the 50s and 60s.
Muddy recorded many songs which became blues standards
including; Got My Mojo Working, Hoochie Coochie Man,
Mannish Boy and I Just Want To Make Love To You.
His visits to Britain in the early 1960s proved a formative
influence on Alexis Korner, The Rolling Stones (who took
their name from one of his songs) and all the others involved in
the British blues boom. Immensely revered and emulated, Muddy is
often seen as a bridging point between blues and rock & roll.
In 1969 he recorded Fathers and Sons with Mike
Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield and Donald 'Duck' Dunn, and in 1972
recorded a London Sessions album with Rory
Gallagher, Stevie
Winwood and Mitch Mitchell (amongst others).
Muddy Waters died on 30 April 1983 at the age of 68, after
suffering a heart attack at his home near Chicago.
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