Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Muddy Waters

Today is the anniversary of the death in 1983 of Muddy Waters at the age of about 70, there being some confusion as to the exact year of his birth. In declining health, he died of heart failure in his sleep at his home.

Rollin' Stone (released in 1950, the performance below is from the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival):



The Rolling Stones took their name from this song.

There is an official Muddy Waters web site, which reports that he grew up in Clarksdale, Mississippi -about 75 miles south of Memphis- and that "He moved to Chicago in 1943, and never looked back". The PBS American Masters page calls him "in many ways, the archetypal bluesman".

2 comments:

  1. You are the second person this week who has talked about Muddy Waters. I'm getting a real history lesson here. AWESOME.

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  2. there are some great blues connections here in memphis and close by. i think it's interesting that he didn't know what year he was born.

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