He debuted the song at the Zanzibar that night the crowd went wild and, when released as a single on Chess, the song became Muddy’s biggest hit, reaching the US R&B number 3 spot and establishing his new urban blues group sound. ‘I got a black cat bone / I got a mojo too / I got a John the Conquerer root / I got to mess with you,’ he sang, most lasciviously, before declaring ‘I’m the Hoochie Coochie Man!’. When he delivered the lyrics, the song seemed to give him a primordial, hypnotic power. Waters married Dixon’s boastful voodoo lyrics to a stop time rhythm – in which several joined beats pause to allow the vocals to be sung – that gave it a swaggering masculine sound. On January 7, 1954, Waters recorded his signature tune, Hoochie Coochie Man, with Jacobs and Rogers alongside Otis Spann on piano, the song’s writer Willie Dixon on bass and Fred Below on drums.ĭixon had originally brought the song to Waters’ regular gig at the Zanzibar club, approaching him in the men’s room between sets. When allowed to record in this style, Waters changed the blues forever and became one of its greatest stars. The Chess brothers wanted Waters to stick to this updated Mississippi Delta sound, but Muddy began developing a new Chicago blues during his live performances, abetted by a stellar electric band that included Little Walter Jacobs on harmonica and Jimmy Rogers on guitar. His 1948 single, I Feel Going Home / I Can’t Be Satisfied, a spectral recording featuring only his vocals and electric slide guitar, backed by Ernest ‘Big’ Crawford’s upright bass, put Waters and the nascent label on the map. McKinley Morganfield, also known as Muddy Waters, was inspired to learn guitar as a teenager in Mississippi after seeing Clarksdale Delta blues pioneer Son House play bottleneck slide.īy 1947, Waters found himself in Chicago, recording for Leonard and Phil Chess’s Aristocrat Records, which was soon to be rechristened Chess Records and take its place in history.
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