McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters, 1913-1983

McKinley Morganfield [Muddy Waters] was born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, near the Mississippi River–in the region known as the Mississippi Delta. On the following map, Rolling Fork is near the bottom left of the yellow area. The Mississippi River is the crooked blue line near there, snaking along the side of the state of Mississippi.

Although this is fodder for another post, the Mississippi River Delta was one of the largest cotton-growing regions of the USA, and the Mississippi River was the vehicle that carried the cotton to market downriver to New Orleans. Although Muddy was born in Rolling Fork, he grew up a bit north of there on Stovall Plantation, which was near Clarksdale, MS. Stovall Plantation is still a working cotton farm.

“McKinley’s mama gave him a life. And a laugh. And then she was gone. Forever.
‘Oh, child. Long gone. Oh, child. Sail on.’” Michael Mahin

Muddy: The Story of Blues Legend Muddy Waters

By Michael Mahin. Illustrated by Evan Turk.

“But Mckinley did have Grandma Della.
She scooped him up and tried to keep him clean and finally just started calling him Muddy.”

“And he had music. Muddy loved the ‘SAY IT WITH ME!’ voice of the preacher: and the ‘GLORY! GLORY! ‘ singing of the choir: But the music Muddy really loved, they didn’t play on Sundays.

“What Muddy really loved was fish-fry music.
“It was shake off the dust and wring out your worries and laugh and cry and feel alive music.
It was the blues, and Muddy couldn’t get enough of it.

“To have the blues was to feel bad.
“But to play the blues was to take that low-down, skunk-funk, deep-stomach hurt and turn it into something else.

“Muddy liked the blues.
“Unfortunately, Grandma Della did not.”

“‘Last I checked, you can’t eat the blues for breakfast,’ said Grandma Della. ‘No child of mine is gonna waste his time with music.’

“But Muddy was never good at doing what he was told.” Michael Mahin

Muddy Waters Birthplace – Rolling Fork, MS

“McKinley Morganfield’s grandmother, Della Grant, nicknamed him “Muddy” because, as a baby on the Cottonwood Plantation near Mayersville, he loved to play in the mud. Childhood playmates tagged on “Water” or “Waters” a few years later. His father, Ollie Morganfield, was a sharecropper in the Rolling Fork area who also entertained at local blues affairs. But Waters was raised by his grandmother, who moved to the Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale when he was still a young child, and his influences were Delta musicians such as Son House, Robert Johnson, and Robert Nighthawk. Muddy first played harmonica with Stovall guitarist Scott Bohanner, but took up guitar under the older musician’s tutelage, and later performed with another mentor, blues legend Big Joe Williams. He also played in a string band, the Son Sims Four, and drove a tractor on the Stovall Plantation, where he ran a juke joint out of his house.” Mississippi Blues Trail

I grew up almost on the Mississippi River north of Muddy Waters’ birthplace, in Gideon, MO. Gideon was also a cotton-growing region, but it is another part of the Mississippi River Delta. There are no traditional Mississippi Blues musicians there.

I currently live in Water Valley, MS, but there are also no traditional Mississippi Blues musicians here. The Mississippi Delta Blues was born and fertilized in the Delta Region of Mississippi — near the Mississippi River. That is where you need to go to understand Mississippi  Delta  Blues.