Today we will talk about who Muddy Waters is. His biography will be discussed in detail below. Without the reciting powerful vocals of this man, as well as his piercing guitar parts, perhaps Chicago would not have become such a musical city.
early years
Our today's hero played unique blues. Muddy Waters had great vocals. The future musician was born in 1915, on April 4, in a town called Rolling Fork. From his youth, he began to learn to play the harmonica. In addition, carried away by the guitar. This happened under the influence of music by Charlie Patton,
Robert Johnson, as well as Sun House. The latter was an idol of our hero and a powerful bluesman. Our hero studied the battle-nek guitar style without assistance. He put on his middle finger in a special way the broken neck of the bottle and learned to ride it with a clang on the strings of the guitar. It was a fairly common technique among street guitarists in the town where our hero grew up.
Debut
In 1941, a musicologist and folklorist named Alan Lomax, on behalf of the
Library of Congress , traveled around the Mississippi. His task was to find particularly talented musicians. When he saw Muddy Waters playing, he realized that he had encountered extraordinary talent. Using portable recording equipment, Lomax kept for the library of Congress a unique performance by our hero of the blues called I Be's Troubled. Subsequently, this composition became the first bestseller of the musician. A few years later, our hero re-recorded this work in a studio called Chess Records and gave her the name I Can't Be Satisfied.
Chicago
Muddy Waters in 1942 was already famous for his masterful performance of a variety of blues in the Mississippi Delta, but dreamed of becoming a star. Therefore, I went to Chicago. He worked, sang at the same time, and also played in clubs. There, the musician met Big Bill Brunzi. Our hero quickly bought an electric guitar and began to perform some unusually sharp, even slightly ferocious, folk blues. Framed in an electric hard rhythm, he left a deep impression. In southern Chicago, his skill was quickly noticed.
Studio
Muddy Waters has performed in clubs with Blue Smithy, the guitarist, as well as pianists Eddie Boy and Sanniland Slim. The latter happened to play a significant role in the creative life of our hero. The pianist invited Waters in 1947 to accompany Aristocrat at a recording studio session. The project was produced by Johnson Machine Gun. On the eve of the concert, our hero had a problem. The recording was to take place on his working day, and at that time he was engaged in the installation of lifting shutters. However, our hero realized that a golden opportunity was slipping away from him. Therefore, he was forced to lie to the head that his cousin was killed and he needed to leave for some time from work.
Creation
Muddy Waters after the completion of the performance of Sanniland performed several of his compositions. These were raw things. They were significantly different from the compositions that our hero subsequently recorded in the studio Columbia. However, these works could no longer be called simple.
Our hero created a group, it was so frantic and explosive during the performances that it received the nickname Headhunter, which means “Bounty Hunters”. The team could come to a bar in which some team played, ask to listen, and then get permission to speak. Then they “tear off their heads” to their competitors in a unique performing manner.
Lester Melrose is a producer who at that time owned one of the local recording studios. He was confused in 1946 when he accompanied Waters. In small clubs, our hero’s guitar was hard to hear, so he decided to connect it to the amplifier and enhance the sound.
The Polish immigrants, who were brothers Phil and Leonard Chess, on shares bought a record company called Aristocrat. This happened in 1947. They did not understand too much the harsh and even rude music that Muddy Waters created. His albums appeared under the Aristocrat brand, as the brothers saw in the sound something close to the inhabitants of the Chicago ghetto. The first singles were not very popular. The second record, I can't Be Satified, can be considered an exception, since its entire circulation was sold out in a day. The blues song I Can't Be Satisfied turned into a local sensation thanks to Big Crawford and Waters' hoarse growl. Subsequently, even the performer himself spent a lot of effort and time to acquire this record.
With the seeming lack of success in the first works of our hero, the Chess brothers changed the company name to Chess Records and ventured to bet on electric blues. Calculation of them eventually worked.
Next, consider the studio albums that our hero worked on. In 1958, he recorded the record The Best of Muddy Waters. In 1960, 2 albums were released right away. They were called Brass and the Blues and Muddy Waters Sings Big Bill Broonzy. In 1961, They Call Me Muddy Waters appeared. In 1964, the album Folk Singer was released. Together with Little Walter and Bo Diddley, our hero in 1967 released the work of Super Blues.