Muddy Waters in London

TONY STANDISH MUDDY WATERS IN LONDON (PART II CONCLUSION) One afternoon I carted a tape recorder southern states, y'know. and we only of Chess Records. At that time I was still up to Muddy’s hotel room. I wanted his would work Friday nights. Sat'day nights, playin’ acoustic. noooo. I guess story to be told but I didn't want it com- "bout two nights out of the week. I before I started recording I had an mited to unreliable memory and scribbled wouldn’t call that professional. Alan electric guitar. The one you’ve heard on elusive scraps of paper. Lomax, that was the man that put it on without electric is the one by Alan Muddy poured drinks. Otis and I lit my mind to turn professional, he opened Lomax. Yeah, that electric got a whole cigarettes, and I started the recorder. my eyes, an' I still think he’s a wonderful lotta sharp stuff. those controls. “Start talkin'? " asked Muddy. guy. I was so sorry I missed him over My style? Well I call it country style. I nodded and. with the murmur of the here. For gettin' into the professional I think that’s the correct name for it. tape as his only accompaniment. Muddy world I would think Alan Lomax was Big Bill was the daddy of country style began. responsible for me—he came down an’ blues singers, don't you think? An’ there’s recorded me the first time and suggested John Lee Hooker, you’d like him. He’s I was born in Rollin’ Fork. Mississippi. I should try the cities. Until then I didn't right out of the country, out of Mississi That’s a little place, so small you could know my voice was so good until I. ppi. Of the blues singers around today spit across it. I moved from there when y'know. heard the playback an’ I thought, B. B. King—I think he’s gonna be the I was quite young, 'bout two years old. “man. I can sing”. Of course, he sent me next man you gotta look out for. An’ I guess, an’ I was raised up outside a couple of copies after he went back. there’s Bobby Blue Bland., he’s makin’ a Clarksdale, Mississippi, in Stovall. That After he'd gone I didn’t stay down there name for himself. Washboard Sam's still was farming country, they raised cattle, longer'n two years. I'm sure. I was around Chicago, but I don’t think he's and horses, hogs n' sheeps an’ goats an’ workin' on a farm when he came down singin’ much, and Lightnin’ Hopkins all that stuff, chickens. My folks were two years straight to see me an’ the next won’t leave his little farm down in Texas farmers. My daddy was a guitar player, year I lef'. The next time he saw me I . but he’s very big. Little Walter an’ he played guitar (like all southerners. was in Chicago. Wolf, that's Howlin Wolf, arc around Muddy pronounced this ’git-tar’). He’s I went straight to Chicago, didn’t Chicago an’ Elmo’ James is workin’ the still livin’ but he don’t play any more travel 'round at all. .. went by same place as me. Doc Clayton? He’s —too old. My mother, she's dead. But train from Clarksdale to Memphis. dead. Chuck Berry? That man’s a show he’s got all my records. That’s the... what is it?... ah stopper! Lowell Fulson? He’s out on the I started blowin’ on a harp when I was . R.C., yeah, the R.C. Railroad. You West Coast. sort’ve cooled off lately. about fifteen years old—I played with change at Memphis, an’ from Memphis Cousin Joe? Nooo. don’t know him: if several fellas. I had one fella with me to Chicago. I don’t know the name he's in New Orleans he prob’ly plays the name of Scott Bohound an’ another fella of that railroad. I came up on the fay joints. Ray Charles? Yeah, he’s by the name of Son Sims. He played train they call "Chicago 9’’. When I got great. We toured the South with him. lead vi'lin. Had a guy play mandolin by there at that time Bill was the top man— him an’ that little band. met up with name of Lewis Fuller (or Fowler). Big Bill. Memphis Slim. Sonny Boy him in Texas. I think it was. He sings we had a good little string band. Then Williamson. Yeah. I played with them. I ’til tears come out of those eyes. yeah, ’bout a year, couple years, after I got did some gigs with Memphis Slim—this he’s blind, but tears come out of his eyes. close to twenty — musta been about was about 1942/43. When I got there I He’s real country. Got that gospel. twenty, twenty-one years old, and then started playin’ house parties, y'know, get- y’know. right out of the country. we just sittin' 'round the house and togethers. jus’ kept on until someone says But Bill was the daddy of blues singers he showed me different little things on —“this cat in town he got a good voice, . those old timers really had it. the guitar and then I got to play pretty man. he can sing"—an' so on an’ so on Doc Clayton, Robert Johnson. Sonny good on the guitar so we just put down ’til a few years later Chess discovered Boy. the harmonica and we had two guitars. me. He grabbed me. an' I'd like you to I think that Chicago’s the best city in I don’t play harp now—can’t blow put in there that he has been good to me the States for blues singers. Oh. we got 'em no more. Well. I was mostly playin’ —we came up together an’ I know that blues singers scattered everywhere. for kicks in those days—I had made my if ever I struck hard times he would in New York, but in New York City self a good name all around through the look after me: Leonard and Field Chess. they really don’t have blues singers but 3 all out in New Jersey. people is blues -but a lot of guys loose money like blues singers than any one club in the crazy ’right round twenty miles of New that, sellin' their songs outright. whole city of Chicago. He features blues, York. We was lucky enough to get into (Muddy and I were looking through a period. That’s what he likes and that's the Apollo theatre. but they had Chess catalogue I had brought with me. what he’s gonna have in there. Somethin’ diff'rent groups there. They had couple and I asked him if Eddie Boyd's "The else come, he say. “ 'gotta get this crap good blues singers on an' they also had Story Of Bill" was about Big Bill outa here, ’cause my people don’t like those group singers. what them teen- Broonzy. He laughed . " That’s what that”. I 'member at Silvio’s they had. age kids like an' all that stuff. I mean, a blues singer always sings from at once. Howlin’ Wolfs band, Elmore The rock ’n roll craze helped us a lot experience. No. that's not about Bill James' band. Jimmy Rogers' band, and back in the Slates, but these kids. Broonzy. You see, this cat's goin' with my band—four great bands in one night Elvis Presley, he's just a Johnny-come- Eddie's girl, so he makes a song about —and the peoples. you need a big lately. he's over-night man, but he's gon’ i t .) hall when you have that sort’ve show. get rich off it. he's just pinchin' We had ’em linin’ up tryin’ to pay coloured people's stuff an' takin' it an' Otis—he's my half-brother—and I been together ’bout ten or twelve years now. dollar head and couldn’t even get to sellin’ it to the white. He was raised the door. We had lots of fun. Man, I around Memphis. Elvis is a nice bay, Oh yes, I’ve had the same group for a long time; I think I’ve only had two like to get all them pretty little girls in but he's copy-cattin', that’s all. I used to there. No, I’m not there any more. do some that stuff, y’know, but I cut it. fall out, maybe three. That was Little Walter when he got strong enough to I’m at Smithy's Comer, a very wonder Didn't want people thinkin' I was tryin' ful little club. kinda small but it's to be Elvis. But that clownin’. you go for himself an’ the boy that played the second guitar for me was Jimmie wonderful and they’re nice people. South- know, if you clownin' you're doin’ side. 35th and Indiana, and that corner nothing else. You ain't playin’. Back in Rogers. Otis is the oldest fella with me now. been with me longer'n anybody is well known now. It always was ’cause the old days I used to clown all the time the old man been on it so long, but now - my group on the stand an' I'm way out else.

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