Take a moment to realize the huge influence this man has had on Rock N Roll and popular music as a whole.  In 1962 The Rolling Stones formed in England taking their name from his 1950 song “Rollin’ Stone”.  In 1967 Jann Wenner created Rolling Stone Magazine after that same song.  Along the way he has influenced countless British and American Rock & Blues musicians, not to mention his direct involvement in turning up the volume of blues with the introduction of electronically amplified instruments.

When you think of Muddy Waters you probably think of his Chess Records hits.  Most people don’t realize that Muddy first recording was in 1941 while living on cotton farm in Mississippi way before the guitar had been amplified electronically – he was playing good old acoustic country blues from the Mississippi Delta.  He was recorded by none other than Alan Lomax (& John Work III) the famous American field recordist for the Library of Congress.  Once Muddy moved to Chicago in the mid 40s his first records were with the Chess brothers original record label, Aristocrat records.  Muddy didn’t officially record for Chess Records until 1950 when the label was born.  From 1950 – 1975 Muddy records many sides and albums for Chess but the majority of his best songs come from the years 50′ – 58′.  After Chess was sold to a few different companies in the 70s Muddy recorded a few albums for CBS/Sony, most notable are Hard Again and I’m Ready.

I put together a playlist of my favorite Muddy Waters tracks spanning his whole career.  Keep in mind you will be unable to find an official release that compiles all his best songs spanning his whole career because of licensing rights.  The best compilation of Muddy’s overlooked original Lomax recording is called The Complete Plantation Recordings.  The best career retrospective compilation (believe me there are many) that I could find is called The Anthology released in 2001 by MCA Records.  This 2 CD set features Muddy’s best tracks from his Aristocrat recording in the late 40s and all his best stuff from his many years at Chess Records.  Lastly a few songs from his best CBS/Sony recordings which I mentioned above are also included.

If you don’t see the embedded playlist below, follow this link.

Published in 2002 and written by author Robert Gordon, Can’t Be Satified is a biography of Muddy Waters.  The book is a loose chronological telling of Muddy’s life which is broken up into 15 chapters, each featuring a set number of years.  Gordon does a great job piecing together the history of a man for which there wasn’t many living subjects or decent records.  The author does his best with what remained which included old news paper & magazine articles, recordings, video, and interviews with any and every living relative, friend or business colleague.  The book is mostly given in story form but breaks from this quite a bit to include references to other related notes, or excerpts from actual interviews or sources.

Through out the book Gordon takes time to flesh out many of the supporting cast including his influences and Delta Blues founders like Son House, Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Sonny Boy Williamson.  You get a little closer look at the many musicians that made up Muddy’s band members and fellow Chess Records artists including Willie Dixon, Son Simms, Otis Spann, Little Walter, Jimmy Rogers, Howlin’ Wolf… just to name a few.  Gordon takes a lot of time exploring Muddy’s career as a recording artist and performer but also takes time to flesh out his family life.  He documents what he could of his relationship with all his wives and what childern that he claimed from those marriages and from other affairs.

At first glance the book is fairly thick and unless you page through the end you will be surprised to find out the last quarter is actually just notes, acknowledgements and an index.  Included are a detailed bibliography, chapter by chapter notes, guide to Muddy’s recordings, and a few other interesing tidbits.

Here are some interesting facts about Muddy Waters:

• His real name is Mckinley Morganfield which he changed to Muddy Water later in life and then finally to Muddy Waters after a record company misprinted his name on one of his early recordings.
• It was not a secret that Muddy was a womanizer.  Through Muddy’s life he married 3 times and had many children with his wives and other women (I could not find an exact number).  One of his children is Blues musician Big Bill Morganfield.
• Obviously Muddy’s Chicago shows were highly sexually charged, so much so that its said that Muddy would frequently expose himself to the audience after being goaded into it by the ladies in audience.
• One New Years Eve, Muddy obviously getting a little out of control partying it up accidentally shot his friend and employee Bo (Andrew Bolton) in the leg.
• Shortly after the death of Leonard Chess in 1969, while on tour in 1970, Muddy got into a bad car accident in which left 3 people dead including tour mate John Warren.   Muddy suffered 3 broken ribs, a broken pelvis, sprained back and a shattered hip; he was bed ridden for months.

Check out more about Muddy Waters at the following links.

Muddy Waters Allmusic.com page

Muddy Waters Wikipedia page

www.muddywaters.com

There is also a companion video to this book called Muddy Waters – Can’t Be Satisfied released in 2003 on DVD.  It’s not great but it does the trick if you want to see footage of Muddy or if you just want a quick overview of his life.  There was also supposed to be a companion CD released which would compile the authors favorite tracks across Muddy’s whole career but I don’t think he was ever able to work out all the licensing.  If you are interesting in hearing Muddy’s best, check out my related post about Muddy’s music featuring a embedded playlist with all of Muddy’s best stuff (career spanning) here.

This is the one and only documentary that I could find on The Carter Family.  Produced as part of the American Experience series on PBS in 2005, it is a 1 hour straight forward chronological document of the history of the original Carter Family narrated by actor Robert Duvall.  The film leans heavily on interviews with writers, family members, and other famous musicians (including Gillian Welch, Marty Stuart, Joan Baez, and Rodney Crowell.)  You will also see archival footage and photos spiced up with the “Ken Burns Style” pan and zoom technique.  The film also throws in filmed reenactments which thankfully are done tastefully and are hardly noticeable.  Definitely a great introduction to Country Music’s first family.

I picked up a bunch of great nuggets of music knowledge… here is a few tidbits to wet your appetite.

• The “Original Carter Family” is made up of A.P. Carter, his wife Sara and A.P.’s sister in law Maybelle (later would include some of Maybelle’s daughters).  The film does not cover the second incarnation of the Carter Family which featured just Maybelle and her daughters.
• Sara and A.P. married in 1915 but didn’t start recording until they were discovered by a Victor Records representative by the name of Ralph Peer in 1927.
• When A.P. discovered he could make money recording and copywriting songs began to travel door to door all over the rural south collecting the peoples songs and then re-arranged them.  Not necessary the most honest way to make a living when you look at it, but I guess if he hadn’t done it, a lot of America’s early folk music would be lost.
• The Carter Family recorded and performed roughly from 1927 to 1943 and became widely known and popular across America.  Their public image was of a solid wholesome family unit, when in reality Sara and A.P. had been having marital troubles ever since the mid twenties.  In 1936 unbeknownst to their fans they separated but continued to perform together.  In 1943 Sara filed for divorce which also split up the original lineup.

Go to the American Experience – Carter Family website to see info on the film and take advantage of web extras.

Here is a few tracks from The Carter Family for your listening pleasure (if you don’t see the embedded playlist, follow this link.)

Released in 2006 this film is a documentary about Joe Bussard Jr., a man that has devoted his life to the pursuit of rare 78s from the golden era (1924 – 1933) of American folk music.  I was immediately charmed by this old codger, dancing around with his lanky frame and smiling with a cigar hanging out of his mouth in pure glee while listening to these lost gems of American music.  He is the archetypal record collector that is truly passionate about the music and the hunt for the next rare find.  Not an extremely exciting story but a wonderfully interesting portrait of a man that is devoted to and obsessed with searching out these forgotten treasures.  Being personally interested in the music of this era it was a great pleasure to hear his favorite picks and some of the background behind them.  This DVD not only features Desperate Man Blues but also a shorter more recent documentary called “King of All Record Collectors” which I would say was a little better than the feature.

Among Bussard’s accomplishments include his long running radio show “Country Classics”, being the go-to guy for transfers of these extremely rare 78s for countless collections and organizations, and running the last American 78 record company called Fonotone Records which he operated from 1956 -1969 and released tons of almost true to the original old timey music.  In 2005 the Dust To Digital record label released a 5 CD box set of all the material ever pressed by his company, learn more about it here.

Also available is the soundtrack for the film which features a bunch of great tracks that are heard in the movie.

Check Joe out on the web at:  http://www.vintage78.com/ or Joe’s Myspace page.

Just as an added bonus, I’ll post up some music that is similar to what you’ll experience in the Documentary below (if you don’t see the embedded playlist, follow this link.)