Muddy Waters 083

Muddy Waters 083

Look closer for the following five lyrics: “I got a boy child’s comin’.”(Rollin’ Stone); “I’ll prove to you baby that I ain’t no square.”(I’m Ready); “The whole round world know we here.”((I’m Your) Hoochie Coochie Man); “Well, brooks run into the ocean, the ocean run in, into the sea.”(I Feel Like Going Home); “She going to jump and shout.”(I Can’t Be Satisfied).

The Story:

McKinley Morganfield (04-04-1913 – 04-30-1983), known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the “father of modern Chicago blues”. His style of playing has been described as “raining down Delta beatitude”.

Muddy Waters grew up on Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, and by age 17 was playing the guitar and the harmonica, emulating local blues artists Son House and Robert Johnson. He was recorded in Mississippi by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in 1941. In 1943, he moved to Chicago to become a full-time professional musician. In 1946, he recorded his first records for Columbia Records and then for Aristocrat Records, a newly formed label run by brothers Leonard and Phil Chess.

Early ‘50s, Muddy Waters’ band (Little Walter Jacobs, harmonica; Jimmy Rogers, guitar; Elga Edmonds (aka Elgin Evans), drums ;and Otis Spann, piano) recorded several blues classics, some with the bassist and songwriter Willie Dixon. These included “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “I Just Want to Make Love to You” and “I’m Ready”. In ‘58, he went to England, laying foundations of the resurgence of interest in the blues there. His performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960 was recorded and released as his first live album, At Newport 1960.

Muddy Waters’ music has influenced various American music genres, including rock and roll and subsequently rock.

Early life

Muddy Waters’ place and date of birth aren’t exactly known. He stated that he was born in 1915 in Rolling Fork, Sharkey County, Mississippi. Other evidence shows he was born in unincorporated Jug’s Corner, in neighboring Issaquena County, in 1913. In the 1930s and 1940s, before his rise to fame, the year of his birth was reported as 1913 on his marriage license, recording notes, and musicians’ union card. A 1955 interview in the Chicago Defender is the earliest in which he stated 1915 as the year of his birth, and he continued to state that year in interviews from that point onward. The 1920 census lists him as five years old as of March 6, 1920. The Social Security Death Index, relying on the Social Security card application submitted after his move to Chicago in the mid-1940s, lists him as being born April 4, 1913. His gravestone gives his birth year as 1915.

His grandmother, Della Grant, raised him after his mother died shortly after his birth. Grant gave him the nickname “Muddy” at an early age because he loved to play in the muddy water of nearby Deer Creek. “Waters” was added years later, as he began to play harmonica and perform locally in his early teens. He taught himself to play harmonica. Remains of the cabin on Stovall Plantation where he lived in his youth are now at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

He had his first introduction to music in church: “I used to belong to church. I was a good Baptist, singing in the church. So I got all of my good moaning and trembling going on for me right out of church,” he recalled. By the time he was 17, he had purchased his first guitar. “I sold the last horse that we had. Made about fifteen dollars for him, gave my grandmother seven dollars and fifty cents, I kept seven-fifty and paid about two-fifty for that guitar. It was a Stella. The people ordered them from Sears-Roebuck in Chicago.” He started playing his songs in joints near his hometown, mostly on a plantation owned by Colonel William Howard Stovall.

Early career, 1930s–1948

In the early 1930s, Muddy Waters accompanied Big Joe Williams on tours of the Delta, playing harmonica. Williams recounted to Blewett Thomas that he eventually dropped Muddy “because he was takin’ away my women [fans]”.

In August ‘41, Alan Lomax went 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,” Muddy told Rolling Stone magazine, “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 in July ‘42. Both sessions were released by Testament Records as Down on Stovall’s Plantation. The complete recordings were reissued by Chess Records on CD as Muddy Waters: The Complete Plantation Recordings.

In 1943, Muddy went to Chicago with hopes of being a full-time professional musician. He later recalled getting to Chicago as the most momentous event in his life. He lived with a relative for a short period while driving a truck and working in a factory by day and performing at night. Big Bill Broonzy, then one of the leading bluesmen in Chicago, had Muddy open his shows in the rowdy clubs where Broonzy played. This gave him the opportunity to play in front of a large audience. In 1944, he bought his first electric guitar and then formed his first electric combo. He felt obliged to electrify his sound in Chicago because, he said, “When I went into the clubs, the first thing I wanted was an amplifier. Couldn’t nobody hear you with an acoustic.” His sound reflected the optimism of postwar African Americans. Willie Dixon said that “There was quite a few people around singing the blues but most of them was singing all sad blues. Muddy was giving his blues a little pep.”

In 1946, Muddy recorded some songs for Mayo Williams at Columbia Records, with an old-fashioned combo consisting of clarinet, saxophone and piano; they were released a year later with Ivan Ballen’s Philadelphia-based 20th Century label, billed as James “Sweet Lucy” Carter and his Orchestra – Muddy Waters’ name was not mentioned on the label. Later that year, he began recording for Aristocrat Records, a newly formed label run by the brothers Leonard and Phil Chess. In 1947, he played guitar with Sunnyland Slim on piano on the cuts “Gypsy Woman” and “Little Anna Mae”. These were also shelved, but in 1948, “I Can’t Be Satisfied” and “I Feel Like Going Home” became hits, and his popularity in clubs began to take off. Soon after, Aristocrat changed its name to Chess Records. Muddy Waters’s signature tune “Rollin’ Stone” also became a hit that year.

credit – Wikipedia

The artwork: 

The first print of this illustration is available to support a non-profit fundraiser. Contact lisafromlsu@gmail.com.for details.

Digital Print on Archival Matte – Original illustration done in graphite and the following Prisma Colors: Indigo Blue and True Blue for the blues; Terra Cotta; and Orange to compliment the blues.

Artist: Tobin Bortner of Bastrop, Texas – drawing done in October of 2023 – ©Tobin Signs/Look Closer Illustrations 
DERIVATIVE Work – photo credits: face from articles_chicagotribune_com – trbimg_com – chi-muddy-waters-home-museum-20140128-001; guitar from planet-wissen_de – blueswatersintergjpg102~_v-gseagaleriexl

What you get:
$40 (36.95 + 3.05 tax)
11 x 14 Print Package with Authenticity Sheet
signed and numbered (run of 20)
Domestic Priority Mail $8 (Free shipping)