Results for "Muddy Waters"

Muddy Waters

Waters was born McKinley Morganfield in Issaquena County, Mississippi in 1913 (He later told people that he was born in 1915 in Rolling Fork, Mississippi; the reason for this remains unknown). His grandmother Della Grant raised him after his mother died in 1918. His fondness for playing in mud earned him his nickname at an early age. Waters started out on harmonica but by age seventeen he was playing the guitar at parties and "fish fries", emulating two blues artists who were extremely popular in the south, Son House and Robert Johnson. "His thick heavy tone, the dark coloration of his voice and his firm almost stolid manner were all clearly derived from House," wrote Peter Guralnick in Feel Like Going Home, "but the embellishments which he added, the imaginative slide technique and more agile rhythms, were closer to Johnson." In 1940 Waters moved to St

John McLaughlin: Where The Muse Leads

By MIKE JACOBS

John McLaughlin—Miles Davis protégé. Jazz/rock revolutionary. East-meets-West visionary. Acoustic, electric and electronic guitar maestro. Now elder statesman of jazz—what is there left to say? A lot it seems... As a septuagenarian who was facing debilitating hand issues—and possibly the end of his playing career—he was starting to say his farewells to touring ...

Savoy Brown: Ain't Done Yet

By DOUG COLLETTE

Kim Simmonds might not be quite as highly regarded in the contemporary blues milieu as “The Godfather of British Blues," John Mayall, but the former's forty-first album under the Savoy Brown monicker suggests he ought to be. As his profile has risen over the last five years, commensurate with his increased activity on the road and ...

Blue Note Records: Lost In Space: 20 Overlooked Classic Albums

By CHRIS MAY

For anyone with a passion for Blue Note, it is hard to conceive of an album that has been “overlooked," let alone twenty of them. For connoisseurs of the most influential label in jazz history, the passion can be all consuming: if a dedicated collector does not have all the albums (yet), he or she will ...

Tony Davis: Golden Year

By KYLE SIMPLER

Tony Davis definitely knows how to get things done. At 25, he has already earned a Master's Degree and is involved in musical education. He has played and recorded with some of the most notable jazz musicians around, including the group, Works for Me. With Golden Year, his first solo album, Davis captures the energy of ...

Brandon “Taz” Niederauer: A Minor with a Major Future

By ALAN BRYSON

Though only seventeen, guitarist/singer/songwriter Brandon Niederauer has amassed a staggering list of accomplishments. At age ten he was a guest and performer on The Ellen DeGeneres Show--the YouTube clip of which has over 3,200,000 views. Two years later he landed a role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Broadway Musical, School of Rock. He has performed a Hendrixesque version ...

John Scofield As A Sideman: The Best Of…

By IAN PATTERSON

John Scofield is a modern-day jazz legend, one of the most instantly recognizable voices on the guitar, and an inspiration to many. In a solo career that began in earnest in 1977, Scofield has carved out his own sound on dozens of albums, including his tribute to Steve Swallow, Swallow Tales (ECM, 2020), a trio album ...

Spring 2020

By DOUG COLLETTE

Blues Deluxe is a regular column comprised of pithy takes on recent blues and roots-music releases of note. It spotlights titles in those genres that might otherwise go unnoticed under the cultural radar. David Clayton-Thomas Say Somethin' Linus Entertainment 2020 Circa “Spinnin' Wheel" plus “And When I Die," ...

Allman Brothers Band: Trouble No More: 50th Anniversary Collection

By DOUG COLLETTE

The gold-embossed lettering on the front and back cover of the roughly 5" by 7" slipcase enclosing the Allman Brothers Band's box set Trouble No More belies its otherwise generic art work. Yet the graphic design isn't all that gives the lie to an otherwise positive first impression gleaned from 50th Anniversary Collection. A glance at ...

Cotton Pickin' Blues

By MARTIN MCFIE

Blues began with enslaved African peoples' work songs in the cotton fields of the Deep South of America. The Slave Narrative of Mr. Sam Polite, given at 93 years of age, chronicles that life. It was written on St. Helena, a cotton producing Sea Island in the Carolinas, where Mr. Polite was born into slavery. The ...