Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters

by Robert Gordon

Book Overview

"A biography that crackles with as much energy as the great bluesman's songs." --Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix The epic, rollicking, up-and-down life of Muddy Waters--who went from Mississippi... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316328499
• ISBN13: 9780316328494
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Must Have

Simply a Must Have for ANY music fan..I don't care if your into hiphop, heavy metal or dancehall, Muddy Waters is the father of all these music styles..it all started with electric blues. Fascinating story.

The Birth of the Chicago Blues.....

From the first line to the last, Robert Gordon transports you back in time....to the birth of a legend, a culture and a way of life. This book is absolute excellence. I very highly recommend it to the deep blues fan as well as the novice.

Wasn't that a man

...Such was the power of Muddy Waters, the rollin' stone from Rolling Fork, Mississippi, whose stark, raw songs transformed popular culture. Robert Gordon, who comes from Memphis, an hour or two north of where Waters grew up, has written the first extended biography that captures the elusive character of this hugely influential man. Waters' life was changed when self-aggrandising musicologist Alan Lomax drove up the dirt road, parked outside the shack in the middle of cotton fields, and asked for a guitar player he'd heard about. (Lomax leaves his black assistant out of his biography; Gordon restores his place in history.) Waters - already nearly 30, but still ploughing fields - sang some tunes for Lomax, and hearing his voice on an acetate showed him the possibilities that lay beyond the wide, wide horizon of the Delta. Muddy Waters was illiterate, so Gordon - author of It Came From Memphis, a splendid social and musical history which manages to leave out Elvis - had to reconstruct his life story from interviews with his band members (many just before they died), the Chess family, and his children, legitimate and illegitimate. There are many of the latter; Muddy didn't go far without a "road wife": "[he] went through several wives, and always had women on the side, and women on the other side too." Gordon doesn't shy from the irresponsible, self-absorbed side of Muddy, a man who'd cheat on his wife without conscience, but support a musician in trouble just as casually. This is often a dark story, full of guns, violence, hard liquor and loose living. Success brought fame but not wealth to Muddy, thanks to his umbilical, exploitative relationship with Chess Records, a continuation of the "furnish" support he got from his cotton farmer back in the Delta. This is the work of a Southern storyteller, it's like sitting back on the porch listening to tales tall and true. Gordon evocatively describes the various scenes of Muddy's life: the cotton economy, the early electric blues of Chicago, the endless road trips, the magic of the Chess studios, and the highs and lows of a career that generated more respect than cash. In Chicago, Muddy's "South Side house stayed rocking. Phones ringing, meats frying, and greens boiling, the TV broadcasting a baseball game, a shoot-'em-up. Muddy, in black T-shirt and black boxers. And always there was music." In the basement, his ever-changing band practiced chords that never changed, but changed the world. Wasn't that a man. A full-grown man.

Book does justice to the King of Chicago Blues

Mmephis writer Robert Gordon has written a gem of blues biography of the legendary Muddy Waters tracing his background in the delta through his emergence as the King of the Chicago blues scene in the fifties to the up and down fortunes of his career as musical tastes shifted and as his music reached new audiences until his death almost two decades ago. Gordon intergates materials from the interviews that Muddy did for various specialist publications (like DownBeat, Living Blues) with his own interviews and other material from Muddy's relatives, bandmembers, managers and others for a book that is one of the better recent musical biographies I have read. Muddy and his music is brought to life. Unlike the other Muddy biography, Gordon provides some blood and flesh to Muddy as opposed to rendering him simply as some legendary icon and also brings the music to life along with some thoughtful commentary on the music. Anyone seriously into blues will need to have this. This books sets a high standard for biographies on Little Walter and Elmore james that are scheduled to be issued in the upcoming months

Waters Run Deep

Muddy Waters is arguably the most influential guitarist of all time. He influenced many guitarists, ranging from Keith Richards to BB King to Eric Clapton. He started out with a makeshift guitar made from a box and listening to country blues greats such as Son House and the legendary Robert Johnson. A sharecropper in the Mississippi Delta, Muddy's life operated on the schedule of King Cotton until a fateful day in 1941 that changed everything. Muddy Waters (then Muddy Water) was discovered. After establishing a name for himself in the South by way of house parties and juke joints, Muddy headed north to Chicago. Once there, Muddy worked many short-lived jobs by day and hit the clubs at night. He eventually hooked up with Leonard Chess, owner of the prominent blues label Chess Records. At the Chess studios Muddy brought his electric blues to the world with records like Hoochie Coochie Man, Rollin' and Tumblin' and I Just Wanna Make Love to You. His music was reminiscent of the country blues with his bottleneck slide while he wove an urbanely electrified flair. The Delta was always in Muddy, and he never forgot where he came from. Robert Gordon, acclaimed blues musicologist, brings all the pieces of research about Muddy together in a fascinating chronology. The book leans more toward textbook style than to narrative due to the multitude of sources Gordon used, but his asides add an insight that few textbooks are able to render. His most prominent sources come from the oral histories of Muddy's friends, family, and associates. I recommend this book to all lovers of things Muddy and all music lovers. Every guitarist or blues connoisseur should have this book in his or her collection.Reviewed by Candace K