Chapter 6:
Bluesmen/Blueswomem
was the
concluding show of his Seven Decades of Funk tour, on August 20, 2006, in San
Francisco. He died of heart failure resulting from pneumonia on Christmas Day
2006. In the following days, public memorial services attracting thousands of
fans were held at New York's Apollo Theater and the James Brown Arena in
Augusta, Georgia, his hometown.
-Muddy
Waters
McKinley
Morganfield (April 4, 1913 – April 30, 1983), known as Muddy Waters, was an
American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern
Chicago blues". He was a major inspiration for the British blues explosion
in the 1960s, and was ranked No. 17 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100
Greatest Artists of All Time.
In 1940,
Muddy moved to Chicago for the first time. He played with Silas Green a year
later, and then returned to Mississippi. In the early part of the decade he ran
a juke joint, complete with gambling, moonshine, and a jukebox; he also
performed music there himself. In the summer of 1941, Alan Lomax went to
Stovall, Mississippi, on behalf of the Library of Congress, to record various country
blues musicians.
In 1943,
Muddy headed back to Chicago with the hope of becoming a full-time professional
musician. 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, helped Muddy break into the very
competitive market by allowing him to open for his shows in the rowdy clubs.
Muddy
headed to England in 1958 and shocked audiences with his loud, amplified
electric guitar and thunderous beat. His performance at the 1960 Newport Jazz
Festival, recorded and released as his first live album, At Newport 1960,
helped turn on a whole new generation to Muddy's sound. He expressed dismay
when he realized that members of his own race were turning their backs on the
genre while a white audience had shown increasing respect for the blues.
Muddy's
sound was basically Delta 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 play on the stage with my band, I
have to get in there with my guitar and try to bring the sound down to me. 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.”Muddy Waters
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