Muddy Waters Research Paper

McKinley Morganfield famously known as Muddy Waters was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter born in Mississippi. Waters was born on April 4th, 1915, in Issaguena County, are rural town in Mississippi. McKinley was nicknamed Muddy Waters because he played in muddy puddles of the Mississippi River. Waters started his music passion at the age of five years old when he played his harmonica, then at seventeen years old he got his first guitar and taught himself how to play from listening to blues legends. In 1941, Waters later joined a Silas Green Tent Show where he began to travel, and his name was becoming acknowledged. John Work and Alan Lomax who are archivist and researchers for the Library of Congress Field Recordings project saw

His love and fans continued as he recorded with other rock musicians from the 1960s through the 1970’s. When Muddy Waters played at the Newport Folk Festival, he really caught a large portion of white audience. The blues became cool with young white hippies who were against racist categorization of blues as “Black music”. In 1971, he won his first Grammy Award for the album “They Call Me Muddy Waters. Muddy Waters decided to go his own ways and signed with Blue Sky Label. This intrigued audiences when he appeared in the Bands farewell performance, that was released as a film in 1978. By the end of his career he was awarded with six Grammys and plenty of other honors. On April 30th, 1983, Muddy Waters died of a heart attack in Illinois. However, Muddy Waters Legacy is still strong as he was inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. In addition to being awarded, “The musician of a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 1992. He was a great influence on many musicians after him, including Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Johnny Winter. In Chicago, they even honored him by renaming a stretch of 43rd street “Muddy Waters

Smith was born on April 15, 1894 in Chattanooga, Tennessee and grew up in poverty. When Bessie Smith was 14 years old, she joined a traveling troupe called Moses Stokes Company. She was hired on the show as a dancer instead of a singer, however she was glad she got her first steps into the business. This is when she met Ma Rainey, the main singer of the company, also known as “The Mother of the Blues”. Bessie Smith worked with Ma Rainey, a real blues singer in the southern tradition. Smith was guided by Ma Rainey who was more experienced, however Smith became more known and was more multi-talented singer. In 1920, Smith had her first show in Atlantic City, eventually moving to New York in 1923. Smith was signed by Columbia for her first recording called “Downhearted Blues” in 1923. With such a powerful voice she had her recordings took off and reportedly sold 80,000 copies. These recordings made her famous and was named “Empress of Blues”. She became the best-selling blues artist of her time, making almost 160 recordings including some of her songs like “Backwater Blues” and “Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness If I Do”. Once she became famous, she began touring everywhere and eventually bought a custom railroad car for her traveling troupe. Traveling on the road, Bessie dealt with corrupt promotors and bad atmospheres. With Ma Rainey as the mentor she also influenced