6.3. Muddy Waters

Arguably the most famous blues artist to come out of Mississippi was Muddy Waters. He, and many other Delta blues musicians, took his style to Chicago and created one of the second major movements within the genre – Chicago or ”urban blues” (alongside the “Memphis blues”). Moving cities and environments brought with it new opportunities and experiences, not least in the new types of instruments at their disposal. The acoustic and steel guitars were replaced with electric guitars by the 40s and 50s, coinciding with the guitars being used in rhythm & blues recordings of the time. Waters’ sexual lyricism was characteristic of most electric bluesmen, which would later be replicated in rhythm and blues in the 50s. One of Waters’ most significant impacts on blues and black popular music was the grittiness of his sound. Before Jimi Hendrix was experimenting with amplified guitar techniques, Waters added amplification to his guitar, to the disdain to an English critic who “spent the last half of the concert in the men’s room, where the sound seemed a little less shrill” (Keil, 1969, p.36). However, his appeal would soon be revived when he returned to England years later