Why is mckinley morganfield called muddy waters

Later that year, Waters toured England and was a major success. Not only did the tour enhance his reputation in foreign countries, but in his home country as well. Many white folks, after hearing about his triumph in England, rushed to the stores to buy his albums. Chess continued to push Waters as a folk-blues artist to gain the interest of white fans; but at the same time, Waters was losing the support of his fellow black fans.

His recorded work was now directed towards the young white public. For the next twenty years, Waters was put on the shelf and subjected to ridiculous album themes and forced to play with new bands. Fortunately, one man, another Mississippian named Johnny Winter, understood the difficulties Waters was enduring, and convinced Blue Sky to sign Waters. Word of his music got out and in the famous folk musicologist Alan Lomax came to Mississippi to record Waters for the Library of Congress.

The attention garnered Waters his first recording contract with Testament Records. The encounter also persuaded Waters that he could become a full-time musician. Waters moved to Chicago to promote his career. By the early s Waters was king of the Chicago blues scene. Waters reached the peak of his of his career in the mid s. Muddy Waters grew up immersed in the Delta blues, and was first recorded by archivist Alan Lomax.

In , he moved to Chicago and began playing in clubs. He was given the moniker "Muddy Waters" because he played in the swampy puddles of the Mississippi River as a boy. His father, Ollie Morganfield, was a farmer and a blues guitar player who separated from the family shortly after Waters was born. When Waters was just 3 years old, his mother, Bertha Jones, died, and he was subsequently sent to Clarksdale to live with his maternal grandmother, Delia Jones.

Waters began to play the harmonica around the age of 5, and became quite good. He received his first guitar at age 17, and taught himself to play by listening to recordings of Mississippi blues legends such as Charley Patton. Although Waters spent countless hours working as a sharecropper at a cotton plantation, he found time to entertain folks around town with his music. In , he joined the Silas Green Tent Show and began to travel.

As he began to gain recognition, his ambition grew. He recorded thirty-five sides for the Chicago-based Aristocrat label from to , beginning a relationship with Leonard and Phil Chess that lasted for nearly thirty years. All of the musicians on the early Chess recordings contributed to the Deep South amplified blues that Waters envisioned, but Little Walter, with a jump blues technique and amplified harmonica blasts that sounded like saxophone solos, particularly proved himself an innovator.

Although Waters was inspired by the acoustic blues of the Delta, he avoided the rural themes of his field recordings. It was amplified attitude, and the lyrics boldly proclaimed his new lifestyle.

Waters sang proudly and boastfully about power and sex and the deliverance that both could bring from the drudgery of everyday life. Waters exalted masculinity and equated it with independence, confidence, and emotional release. He also performed at the Newport Jazz Festival and received an enthusiastic reception.