“Mannish Boy”….hold that thought

When McKinley Morganfield was born 103 years ago, nobody knew that he would become “the father of modern Chicago blues.”

That’s because nobody knew he was Muddy Waters. That didn’t come out right away.

Lucky for us, folklorist Alan Lomax “discovered” Muddy Waters in 1941 and made the first recordings of the unshackled voice of the blues that would make such an enduring, personal statement in the fully dimensioned classics like “Rollin’ Stone,” “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “Got My Mojo Workin’” and “Mannish Boy.”

If you’ve never heard Muddy’s voice, listen to him here, singing:

“…I spell mmm, aaa child, nnn
That represents man
No B, O child, Y…”

Waters can make you a believer about the good qualities of a mannish boy, in a Delta blues kind of way.

He was one of the genuine musicians who seriously influenced the likes of Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones—who took their name from the classic Muddy Waters song.

Waters didn’t have to wrap his lips around the microphone to sing his full-throated songs that invoke zest, and longing, and desperately earnest immersion in life, always up to the hilt….

His mojo never stopped working. 

Word-proof

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Let's hear it for President Obama!

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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.