Cant Be Satisfied: the Life and Times of Muddy Waters Free

FREE CANT BE SATISFIED: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MUDDY WATERS PDF

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Muddy Waters invented electric blues and created the template for the rock and roll band and its wild lifestyle. Gordon excavates Muddy's mysterious past and early career, taking us from Mississippi fields to postwar Chicago street corners. Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. More Details Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Can't Be Satisfiedplease sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Oct 12, Dawn Lennon rated it it was amazing Shelves: biography. If you know Muddy Waters, you know the blues. If you read this book, you get to know the life that informed all the Muddy was and what made him an authentic Delta blues man for his lifetime. We can read about what it meant to be a Southern black and a sharecropper, but through Muddy Waters we get to hear what it meant, how it becomes part of one's bones, and how If you know Muddy Waters, you know the blues. We can read about what it meant to be a Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters black and a sharecropper, but through Muddy Waters we get to hear what it meant, how it becomes part of one's bones, and how a man could find freedom through his music. Muddy was illiterate but savvy; he was a man in every sense, just listen to his lyrics. He was also selfless, accepted responsibility for the women he married and those he didn't along with his children, loyal in the music industry often to his own detriment, helpful to other musicians, and fiercely protective of his performances and look. Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters lived a hard life on the plantation and as a musician. Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters hard was what he knew, and he played hard too among an often hard and threatening crowd, especially when he moved to Chicago. In all things, Muddy Waters is legendary and so is his music. This book is a fascinating and gripping read, taking the Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters into the places where Muddy operated, making you feel both climate and vibe. As a fan of the blues and Muddy Waters, I was captivated by the life of this extraordinary man who continues to influence great music in a contemporary world, even if that influence is under the radar. Jun 15, Joe rated it really liked it Shelves: biography. He brought the Mississippi Delta sound to Chicago, electrified it and redefined the genre. Jann Wenner did the same when he started his new magazine in Muddy was virtually illiterate, so there is very little documentation. What we have are a lot of stories and anecdotes. The author does a very good job in parsing through these, confirming what he can while still giving us an engaging story. All in all though, particularly if you are a blues fan, this is a very good read. View 2 comments. Oct 14, Peter rated it it was amazing. One of the best music biographies I've ever read. More than just the story of one of the most influential figures in the history of popular music, this is the story of the Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters. Gordon traces Waters from his days as a Mississippi sharecropper, to nights spent playing at fish frys in plantation juke joints, to his big break recording for the Library of Congress, to the smokey blues clubs of Chicago and beyond. In addition to a larger than life Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters a hard drinking, poker paying, gun toting One of the best music biographies I've ever read. Gordon clearly has great affection for his subject and has spared no effort to interview pretty much every living person who ever met Waters. Nearly half the book is an exhaustive appendix that is an invaluable resource for fans of both Waters and the blues. Aug 13, Mikelkpoet rated it really liked it. What an eye opening experience. Feb 09, Michael Arden rated it really liked it. The Chicago suburbs where I grew up are a long way from the Mississippi Delta. The north suburbs are also in a parallel universe far from the south side of what has been called the most segregated city in America. The country blues of the Deep South played primarily on acoustic instruments came north with the musicians as northern wartime industries expanded and the great migration of Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters from the South was at its height during WWII and immediately afterwards. Reflecting the frenetic, mechanized, densely populated urban environment of Chicago, the instruments got plugged in and the Chicago Blues were born, complete with a big beat, wailing electric guitars, and soulful harmonica and piano playing. A Chicago kid myself, I only picked up on the blues secondhand like many baby boomers through English musicians like the Animals, Yardbirds, Pretty Things, and most of all the Rolling Stones. Well, turns out THOSE musicians were getting inspired by music coming out of what was after all my own back Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters. In fact the latter band's name was inspired by a s Muddy Waters' hit, "Rollin' Stone. Born McKinley Morganfield, a sharecropper on the Stovall Plantation in Mississippi, the singer accompanying himself on acoustic guitar sometimes with one finger inserted inside a metal tube used as a slide was first recorded by the Library of Congress musicologist, Alan Lomax in the early s, and that's when the legend of Muddy Waters began. Convinced he could make it big as a recording artist, he eventually made his way to Chicago, and the rest, as they say is history, and some great American music in the making. The whole story is here: Muddy's initial hits with Chicago's legendary Chess Records, his unfolding career with the Chess brothers, Leonard and Phil, who after the initial raw sounding hits were often clueless as to how to record, present and promote their biggest blues artist. Their various experiments sometimes diluted his sound, such as when they overdubbed horns, and they managed to inhibit his career growth just as much as they promoted it. Here also are the stories of the multitude of sidemen who played with him, most memorably the great blues pianist, Otis Spann, and Little Walter, who first discovered how soulful a harmonica could sound when played cupped in his hands with a microphone wired to an amp with a reverberating wail cutting to the heart of the blues. Muddy's wives are here, too, along with the outside women, the children born out of wedlock, the mothers strung out on drugs, musicians destroying their health with booze, the dangers of performing in crime ridden neighborhoods with everyone packing guns for protection, and the perils of touring around the country in overloaded station wagons on two lane highways culminating in a deadly head-on collision outside Champaign-Urbana returning from a concert in Tennessee that nearly killed Muddy in Ultimately though, it's a tale of triumph. Although Muddy Waters' records were eclipsed in the s by the musical "babies" spawned by the blues, i. Muddy "made it" in every sense of Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters word, winning new fans first in England then all over the world and inspiring some of the most famous popular musicians, including Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Johnny Winter, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, and fellow Chicagoans Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield, as well as a multitude of blues artists from diverse backgrounds. The author tells the story well for the most Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters although he sometimes turns an artsy sounding phrase that doesn't quite make sense. And while it's a great portrait of an American cultural milieu it could be tough going for those not into the music. Jul 06, Richard Subber rated it it was amazing. The first book I can remember reading, in the s, was a young adult biography of John Paul Jones. Undertaking the creation of one requires embracing the paradoxical: the writer is asked to create the skin and soul of a person, but not to inhabit it. Feb 15, Jim Angstadt rated it it was ok Shelves: dnf. After a summary of the economics of share-cropping, to include one half of the gross to the plantation owner, and the other half, minus all bills, to the share-cropper, maybe the result is positive for the share-cropper, maybe not. The company store may charge unreasonable-high prices. The local plantation script may be intentionally devalued. In other words, the sharecropper gets screwed. In summary: "Sharecropping - getting less than half of what you've got coming to you - was good training fo After a summary of the economics of share-cropping, to include one half of the gross to the plantation owner, and the other half, minus all bills, to the share-cropper, maybe the result is positive for the share-cropper, maybe not. In summary: "Sharecropping - getting less than half of what you've got coming to you - was good training for a life in the music business. Born inMW worked the land. In his teens, he began to follow his musical interests, traveling around the Mississippi delta to honty-tonk joints, local party houses, and the like. This book spent a lot of time covering the early musical associates of MW; more then I was interested in, but probably fascinating for some. Bailed half-way through. It never really grabbed me. Jul 07, John Branney rated it really liked it. This book is well written and an interesting read, even though I struggled getting through the details of the early years. It was heartbreaking to read how many of these pioneers of the blues actually died pretty young and penniless, screwed over by the record This book is well written and an interesting read, even though I struggled getting through the details of the early years. It was heartbreaking to read how many of these pioneers of the blues actually died pretty young and penniless, screwed over by the record companies. It is especially heartbreaking when you consider the millions of dollars the rich and spoiled rock stars of the 70s and beyond have made from the songs and blood, sweat, and tears of these early bluesmen. I have not read other books about Muddy Waters so I cannot compare this book to any others. I can tell you that I found it well organized and interesting most of the time. The book cleared up some of my misperceptions and knowledge gaps about Muddy Waters. I highly recommend it. May 22, Kurt rated it liked it Shelves: the-south. Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters by Robert Gordon

Waters literally made that journey and as he did so his music changed from acoustic to electric. And became electrifying. Waters -- who died in at age 70, although he had celebrated his 68th birthday a month before -- defined a hard-edged and muscular style of blues that profoundly influenced hundreds of musicians, not the least Eric Clapton, Eric Burdon of the Animals and the young Rolling Stonesone of whom Keith Richardswrites the brief foreword to this scrupulously researched and vibrant biography. Robert Gordon -- Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters has written extensively on the music of the South and Elvis Presley -- not only knows the musical turf but the geography and atmosphere of the Mississippi Delta where Waters grew up as a dirt poor, barely literate kid working on a cotton plantation. And Gordon often writes Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters the spirit of a poet to recreate a sense of place, whether it Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters rural shacks vibrating with primitive blues or the unforgiving streets of Chicago. Waters recorded and played when he could, the money increased and finally he made the move to Chicago, as had thousands of other Southern blacks before him. It was not only a howl of anguish but also an aggressive amplified music full of sexual innuendo and bravado, replete with encrypted, dark codes and mysterious language -- the mojo tooth, the hoochie coochie man. Waters took full advantage of the lifestyle he was offered and enjoyed -- and often endured -- serial conquests of women, many of whom exacted violent vengeance when they found out he was stepping out on them. He developed a taste for Piper-Heidsieck. But Waters came to this late -- he was in his 30s when he started making his name in Chicago - and, as the blues audience declined in the 50s, even though he reigned in Chicago and could have his choice of musicians, times got tough and there was competition from white artists who adopted the music as their own. Waters was, even then, still nervous around whites, but it was young English musicians who gave him his the second phase of his career. He was courted by them and introduced to their audience through covers of his songs and tours on the same bill. This was the Waters most recognise today: the mature, handsome, smooth-skinned musician who appears Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters photographs alongside skinny dishevelled guys like Keith Richardsor playing his inspired, deep music with the Band in The Last Waltz. Waters literally came out of rural poverty to conquer the music world, yet the boy was ever inside the man. And ready to exorcise the pain of this world through an electric guitar and a cry from the soul. Comments are restricted to registered users or subscribers only - make sure you enter an email address this site will recognise. Few albums in rock have been so surrounded in dark mythology as this sprawling double album which was the last great gasp of the Rolling Stones. Certainly subsequent albums -- Goats Head Soup, This ingenious, fable-like and gently philosophical novel by Spanish-born, Montreal- based author Martel has not only been salivated over by critics but also longlisted for the Booker. Don't let In interviews Dylan Horrocks, the year old New Zealand writer and artist of the graphic novel Hicksville, is candid enough to note that more people in his home country know about his book than This is how I like my Police. Without Sting. As with that yelping guy in Yes and few others, I find Sting's voice very hard to take. Although I concede that when I consider their album sales With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column by the informed and opinionated Shani. She will scoop up some of those many EP releases by New These are muddy waters indeed. Yet in that there is something emblematic of the blues he came to play and define. Share It. Post Comment. Related Articles robert johnson keith richards chicago blues bb king muddy waters the rolling stones Essential The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Streissued Few albums in rock have been so surrounded in dark mythology as this sprawling double album which was the last great gasp of the Rolling Stones. EPs by Shani. O With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column by the informed and opinionated Shani. Muddy Waters | Can't Be Satisfied | American Masters | PBS

I love Muddy Waters and his music, "Mannish Boy" is timeless. Gordon's biography, unhappily, simply tells me more than I care to know about the day-to-day details of Waters' life. The context of Muddy A good, informative, and engaging chronicle of Muddy's life, career, and influence on other musicians though I would have appreciated a deeper discussion of his approach to music and what made his unique from other blues artists who were his contemporaries. Robert Gordon is the author of several books and documentary films. Robert Gordon. Can't Be Satisfied is that rare thing in musical biographies: a book that maps out not just a single, extraordinary life but the cultural forces that shaped it' Sean O'Hagan, Observer Muddy Waters was the greatest blues musician ever, and the most influential. He invented electric blues, inspired the Rolling Stones and created the template for the Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters 'n' roll band and its wild lifestyle. Robert Gordon's definitive biography vividly chronicles the extraordinary life and personality of the musical legend who changed the course of modern popular music. Introduction to the Canongate Edition Introduction. Mannish Boy Country Blues City Blues Rollin and Tumblin AllStars Hoochie Coochie Man My Dog Can Bark Rollin Stone Eyes on the Prize Hard Again This Dirt Has Meaning and After. Muddys Delta Record Collection Cant be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters Repertoire. The Blues Had a Baby Screaming Guitar and Howling Piano