#42 Stories from the Edge of Music: Muddy Waters, the Godfather of rock and roll

He was the most gracious of men. He could be dignified, powerful, raunchy and even ribald on stage. Knowing him has been one of the greatest privileges of my life.

This collage, created by Toronto musician Freeman Dre, is a stunning portrait of Muddy Waters

The cab driver outside the railway station in Chicago shook his head. “Not going there,” he said firmly.  Two more cab drivers told me the same thing.

And then I realized what the problem was: 47th and Vincennes is in the heart of the South Side; I needed a  Black cab driver.

“Whaddya wanna go there for?” asked the driver I approached.

“It’s a bar called Smitty’s Corner,” I told him. “Muddy Waters playing there.”

“Got any money on you? If you do, put it in your shoe,” he instructed as the car pulled away. “It ain’t the best part of town.”

When we arrived, the driver walked me into the club; we stepped over the drunk sprawled on the sidewalk outside the door. “Be careful now,” he said, handing me his card. “Call me when you wanna go uptown later, an’ I’ll come get you.”

When I stepped into the club, the band was taking a break. Everyone, without exception, turned to stare at me. I approached the bartender: “I’m from England, and my friend Chris Barber, who brought Mr. Waters to England, said I should visit the club, and…”

He looked up, and shouted, “MUD.” A tall man, wearing a gunmetal grey suit, black shirt and and a white tie approached, carefully looking me up and down. Then he gravely shook my hand, and the room relaxed.

I had met a hero from my teenage years.

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All these years later I can’t remember when my first visit to Chicago took place — 1961 or 1962, I think. And the fact is that I lied when I introduced myself to the bartender at Smitty’s Corner — I hadn’t met Chris Barber, the British “trad” jazz band leader who had brought Muddy Waters to the U.K. in 1959. (I did meet Chris, eventually, in 2006, when I promoted him with Jeff Healey’s Jazz Wizards for two nights in a Toronto club.)

And, as in two subsequent visits to Chicago, I owe thanks to the late Bob Koester, who owned the Jazz and Blues Record Mart and ran Delmark Records, a label that released music by many blues artists.

Bob introduced me to Big Joe Williams, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Sunnyland Slim, Howling Wolf and other Chicago blues luminaries. My teenage dreams were coming true.

I also met Bruce Iglauer; he worked in the record store, and later founded Alligator Records. I’m one of many people who encouraged Bruce to start his own label when Bob decided to pass on releasing music by the rough, ready and charismatic guitarist Hound Dog Taylor.

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A ’60s photograph of Waters playing an acoustic guitar, probably taken to promote his second visit to Britain

From deepest Mississippi to world-wide fame

McKinley Morganfield was a field hand on the Stovall Plantation in Mississippi when folklorists John Work and Alan Lomax recorded him for the Library of Congress. He was picking cotton — and playing guitar and harmonica at parties and in juke joints. By the time Work and Lomax recorded him in 1941, he was already a strong musician. 

When Muddy Waters — his preferred nickname from childhood —  heard the recording, he realized he could have a future in music, Two year later he left for Chicago.

Working a day job as a truck driver, he gigged in small clubs, and became a fixture on Chicago’s South Side. Eventually, in 1947, he signed an X on a contract with the Aristocrat label, which three years later changed its name to Chess Records.

His success on that label built his career — dozens of one-night gigs all over the United States, regular appearances in small Chicago clubs, and in 1959, his first “foreign” trip.

The British trad jazz bandleader Chris Barber took him on tour — it was the first time he and pianist Otis Spann had ever been on a plane. The tour was a mixed success — the audience, mostly unaware of  Muddy’s powerful electric guitar, expected old-school acoustic country blues. Two years later, Muddy returned with an acoustic guitar and songs by the likes of Big Bill Broonzy — but the audience now wanted to hear slashing, screaming bottleneck electric guitar.

In 1960 he performed at the Newport Folk Festival — and thus began his acceptance by white audiences in North America. Four thousand miles away from Chicago, a brand new blues band in London named themselves after a Muddy Waters song. In 1967, the first issue of a pioneering rock and roll newspaper rolled off the presses in San Francisco and named itself after the same song.

British tours were frequent; young British musicians idolized him. Keith Richards, John Mayall, Eric Clapton and Mick Fleetwood — among dozens of others — learned his music, absorbed his ethos, and carried his music back to the United States.

The American Blues and Gospel Caravan played throughout Europe, and Muddy played alongside Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Lonnie Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson and more. Other tours, in Japan, Australia and Scandinavia, cemented his international reputation. He won six Grammy Awards over his career.

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Muddy Waters’ first visit to Canada

To be honest, I can’t remember much about Muddy’s first visit to Canada. I’m not even sure when it was — 1963 is my best recollection.

With my friend Beverly Lewis — flush with the success of our first blues presentation with Sleepy John Estes — we contracted Muddy with his band, for a week. Once again, we promoted the show in the First Floor Club, a basement venue in downtown Toronto that held, probably, 60 people.

I seem to remember that we did good business, but that we lost a little bit of money — the town was full of good music that week, including shows with Stan Getz at the Colonial and Lionel Hampton at the Brown Derby. (Hampton and his fur-coated wife, Gladys, came to the final performance.) 

After the gig, Beverly went back to New York with Muddy on a girlish adventure. Accosted by a policeman as she entered Muddy’s hotel in Harlem, she drew herself to her full height (five foot two) and told him in no uncertain terms that she was a doctor and was making a visit to a sick patient.

I do remember, though, that I had no idea that the first promoter of an artist in a marketplace remains the “promoter of record” for subsequent gigs. Soon, Muddy was playing in different venues all over Toronto for other, more experienced, promoters. In 1966 the band, with James Cotton on harmonica, recorded a CBC blues special; it had been my task to connect Muddy with the show’s producer, Paddy Sampson.

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Conversations with Muddy Waters were memorable; at the Colonial Tavern we talked about travel, our kids, and his impressions of Canada

A personal note about the best bluesman of them all

My own memories of him flood back — my lasting impression was his warmth and, most of all, his dignity. Walking with him down the street in Chicago’s South Side was like accompanying royalty. I recall his kindness with fans after shows. Most of all, I remember conversations between sets at the Colonial Tavern in Toronto, when he would drink Moet & Chandon champagne with chasers of Chivas Regal scotch.

Today, 41 years after his death, Muddy’s music sounds as fresh as it did when he made it. The slide guitar sound he pioneered — bringing the old Delta blues to the modern age — still sounds powerful and pertinent. His songs of sexual prowess are echoed in the braggadocio of many rap artists today

Muddy Waters’ legacy lives on. His mojo has been working and it worked on everyone who has been touched by his music.

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FIVE MUDDY WATERS RECORDS YOU SHOULD HAVE

The Complete Plantation Recordings (Chess/MCA)

These are his very first recordings, from 1941, and they include some of the songs he was to sing for the rest of his life.

The Best of Muddy Waters (Chess/MCA)

Released in 1957, this was his first album — a compilation of singles that had been strong hits for Chess Records.

Muddy Waters Live at Newport (Chess/Rio/MCA)

This was the 1960 “breakthrough” album — the artist’s first major appearance before a predominantly white audience in North America.

Fathers and Sons (Chess/MCA)

Wit  Paul Butterfield and Michael Bloomfield, this double album isn’t easy to find — but well worth the search.

Muddy Waters: Hard Again (Blue Sky/CBS)

Produced by Johnny Winter, this 1977 comeback record reignited Muddy’s career after a fallow period.

There are literally dozens of reissues featuring the music of this seminal artist — the best is a three-CD box set simply titled Muddy Waters. The elaborate sleeve notes include essays by Robert Palmer and my long-time Facebook friend Mary Katherine Aldin. 

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And you should find these two books…

Muddy Waters: The Mojo Man, by Sandra B. Tooze. Published by ECW Press (1997), with a forward by Eric Clapton.

Can’t Be Satisfied — The Life and Times of Muddy Waters, by Robert Gordon. Published by Little, Brown (2002) with a forward by Keith Richards.

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TWO VIDEO LINKS

I was lucky to hang with Ottawa guitarist/singer Sue Foley last month; I have to share this clip with you. Sue’s now based in Austin, Texas, but returns to play in Canada as often as she can.  You’ll be glad to know that she has a new “Pinky” — her pet name for her guitar. This one in this video looks pretty battered but her new one is just as pink and sounds just as good.

Another Canadian export is a seven-piece southern soul blues/roots styled band from Toronto named Bywater Call. The band is blessed with a powerful leather-lunged singer called Meghan Parnell and her husband, guitarist Dave Barnes. This clip’s from a gig the band played in Scotland last year 

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Like many of you, I usually close most of my e-mails with a standard message —in my case a quote or two from famous people who’ve said something that seems to sum up my own attitudes. Here’s the most trenchant one of all…

“I may be old, but I’ve got young-fashioned ways.” — Muddy Waters

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NEXT TIME

I’ve just realized I’ve been writing this Substack for a year. A whole year! So next week I’m going to repeat the first one I wrote — when I had a quarter of the 650 readers I have now. There’ll be some additional new stuff as well.

Thank you for reading — your comments are always welcome, and I’d encourage you to share all this with your friends, particularly if they are blues fans. 

A little bit of financial support, if you can manage it, would be gratefully received.  Paid subscriptions — $6 each month — support this Substack. And may even help pay for a newer computer, since the one I’m writing on now — saved for another few months by my friend Julia Summerhill— is on its last legs!