When McKinley
Morganfield was born 103 years ago, nobody knew that he would become “the
father of modern Chicago blues.”
That’s because nobody
knew he was Muddy Waters. That didn’t come out right away.
Lucky for us, folklorist Alan Lomax
“discovered” Muddy Waters” in 1941 and made the first recordings of the
unshackled voice of the blues that would make such an enduring, personal
statement in such fully dimensioned classics as “Rollin’ Stone,” “Hoochie
Coochie Man,” “Got My Mojo Workin,’” and “Mannish Boy.”
If you’ve never heard Muddy’s voice, listen to him here, singing
“…I spell mmm, aaa child, nnn
That represents man
No B, O child, Y…”
That represents man
No B, O child, Y…”
Waters can make you a believer about the good qualities of a mannish
boy, in a Delta blues kind of way.
He was one of the genuine musicians who seriously influenced the likes
of Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones—who took their name from the classic Muddy
Waters song.
Waters didn’t have to wrap his lips around the microphone to sing his
full-throated songs that invoke zest, and longing, and desperately earnest
immersion in life, always up to the hilt….
His mojo never stopped working.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016
All rights reserved.
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