Muddy Waters

"The gypsy woman told my mother, before I was born, said you gotta boy child coming, gonna be a son of a gun," - well, she wasn't far wrong as McKinlay Morganfield rose from running juke joints along the Mississippi to become one of the best loved and most influential bluesmen in history. Nicknamed Muddy by his grandmother because of his love of playing in the dirt as a child, he was discovered by folklorist Alan Lomax, who recorded him for the Library of Congress, before moving to Chicago where, encouraged by Big Bill Broonzy, he set up one of the first fully electric delta blues bands. Waters' legendary recordings for Chess Records helped define the Chicago Blues sound and he became a huge inspiration to the likes of The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin. His recordings of Rollin Stone, Hoochie Coochie Man, Mannish Boy, Got My Mojo Working and I Just Want to Make Love To You have all become classic standards of the genre and early templates for what turned into rock'n'roll. Waters died in 1983 of heart failure but he remains a key figure in American Music history and an influence on every blues rock band going.

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