Description
Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield, 1913-1983) was to a generation of 1960s white British R&B nerds (with names like Clapton, Beck, and Page) the embodiment of The Blues. It was a distinction Muddy earned, by doing what a legend spends years at: paying dues. As a youth, he lived in a Mississippi shack; he was discovered by musicologist Alan Lomax on a field trip in 1941. In 1943, Muddy moved to Chicago, where his awesome bottleneck skills and electrifying voice came to define that city’s blues scene. He dominated the R&B charts in the ’50s, as his reputation spread nationwide (and eventually worldwide). Though his chart fortunes dwindled in the ’60s, his stature as a blues pioneer were firmly established, leading to his posthumous induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. As any musician with a sense of history will attest, Waters helped develop the foundations of Rock & Roll avant la lettre.