Muddy Waters

On April 30, 1983, the American musician died in his sleep from heart failure.

Two years after Waters’ death, Chicago honored him by assigning one one-block section near his former house as the "Honorary Muddy Waters Drive".

Muddy Waters was born as McKinley Morganfield on 4 April 1913 (his birth year is stated to be 1915 in some sources) in the city of Rolling Fork in Mississippi. His father Ollie Morganfield was a blues guitar player as well as a farmer.

His father abandoned the family shortly after Waters was born. At the age of three, Waters lost his mother, Bertha Jones, and went to live with his grandmother, Della Grant.

He started playing the harmonica when he was five and began performing music on the streets as a teenager.

In the early 1940s, Muddy Waters went to Chicago and started living with his relative. He then met Big Bill Broonzy, one of the leading bluesmen of that time, who decided to give the talented young man a chance. Broonzy let him open his shows in clubs and gave him the chance to play in front of a large audience.

In 1946, Waters recorded some songs for Columbia Records. Soon after this, he started recording for Aristocrat Records. He also played guitar on the cuts "Little Anna Mae" and "Gypsy Woman". He sang for the tracks "I Feel Like Going Home" and I Can't Be Satisfied" which became huge hits.

His popularity grew with the passing years and by 1953 he was recording with one of the most celebrated blues groups in history with Jimmy Rogers on guitar, Little Walter Jacobs on harmonica, Otis Spann on piano and Elga Edmonds on drums. During the early 1950s, the band released a series of blues classics including "I'm Ready", "Hoochie Coochie Man" and "I Just Want to Make Love to You".

Waters released the single “Juke” with Little Walter. This was followed by the release of the singles "Sugar Sweet", "Trouble No More", "Don't Go No Farther", "Got My Mojo Working" and "Forty Days and Forty Nights".

In the late 1950s, Waters’ career began to decline and his single "Close to You" became the only one of his songs to reach the charts in 1958. The same year, he also released his album titled ‘The Best of Muddy Waters’.

In 1969, Muddy Waters recorded the album titled ‘Fathers and Sons’ that included performances by his longtime fans Paul Butterfield and Michael Bloomfield who had wanted to work with Waters from a long time. This album was the most successful work of Waters' music career.