News & Updates — Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield's name was awesome enough but he had to go and start being called Muddy Waters, which is like the old bluesman equivilent of a punk rock name. But that is an appropriate analogy since his loud & electrified folk-blues was the punk of its generation. Without Muddy, the path to Chicago blues, rock, metal and punk might've taken other roads. Of questionable birth year, Muddy came from the musically fertile area of Clarksdale, Mississippi. He started playing harmonica but switched to guitar after hearing Son House. Alan Lomax was the first to record him (in '41, right in...

A fine vibraphonist (and pianist) and a visionary producer, conductor and arranger, Charles Stepney was the psychedelic soul man over at Chess Records and their subsidiary Cadet Concept. Producer of classics by Ramsey Lewis, Minnie Ripperton, The Howlin' Wolf Album, Muddy Waters (Electric Mud), Terry Callier, Marlena Shaw, The Dells, The Emotions, Phil Upchurch and more, he was co-founder of Rotary Connection and Earth, Wind & Fire (although due to his contract with Chess could not always be listed in the credits). As a sideman he performed on many Chess songs, as well as played on albums by Eddie Harris,...