Muddy Waters: Can’t Be Satisfied
Muddy Waters: Can’t Be Satisfied Directed by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon, American Masters Series, 2003) Any person remotely interested in studying the history of American music will inevitably end up listening to the blues. When listening to the blues, that music fan will at some point end up listening to Muddy Waters. Muddy Waters: Can’t Be Satisfied allows the viewer to enter the world of this seminal figure in American music. The film is a companion to co-director Robert Gordon’s authoritative biography Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters.
A wide variety of important figures from the musical world testify throughout the film to the importance and influence of Muddy Waters. B.B. King, another critically important figure in blues history, calls Muddy Waters the “godfather of the blues”, and states that “Muddy was singing when I was still plowin’” in the fields. Keith Richard of the Rolling Stones appears numerous times in the film, at one point stating “there’s a dead place in us all” that Muddy’s music represents. Bonnie Raitt also appears throughout the film, stating that to her Muddy was, without a doubt “the most sexy bluesman ever”. It is also clear throughout the film that on a personal level Muddy Waters was never a saint. Several ex-band members state that Muddy always had a thing for young women; his granddaughter recalled the difficult relationship that Muddy had with his wife, and concluded that Muddy was “as much of a family man as he could be.”
Students of the blues will probably already be familiar with much of the story of Muddy’s life that is described in this film. Muddy grew up and began to play music on the Stovall plantation in Mississippi; when asked if Muddy went to church a man who knew him recalled that even back then he was “playing for the devil”. Muddy was discovered by Alan Lomax in 1941, who worked for the Library of Congress; Lomax was in Mississippi looking for Robert Johnson (who had already died) when he discovered Muddy. Lomax made the first recordings of Muddy (the “plantation recordings” are still essential recordings for anyone interested in the blues).
In 1943 Muddy Waters joined the legions of southern blacks that migrated to the north in the pre-war and World War II era. Muddy ended up in Chicago, got a job in a paper factory, and began to play his music at house parties and small clubs. Muddy and others transformed the acoustic blues they had played in the south into a more electrified, up-tempo brand of blues; eventually Muddy’s music became the personification of the new “urban blues”. In 1950 Leonard Chess, an immigrant from Poland, founded Chess Records, and one of the first artists Chess signed was Muddy Waters. Jim Dickinson, a musician from Mississippi notes the paternalistic nature of the relationship between Muddy and Leonard Chess; he states that to Muddy Chess, Alan Lomax, and the plantation owner at Stovall were essentially all the same “white devil”.
As the film reveals, during the early and mid-1950s Muddy Waters WAS the most influential blues figure in Chicago. Many of Muddy’s songs, such as Hootchie Coochie Man and Mannish Boy, were absolutely saturated with sex. Muddy was able to attract a number of incredible blues musicians to his bands throughout his career. In 1958 Muddy toured Great Britain and introduced Chicago blues to young British music fans; kids like Keith Richard, Bill Wyman, and Mick Jagger came to worship Muddy and other American bluesmen. Many of the first songs performed by the Rolling Stones were Muddy Waters covers. Muddy also introduced blues to a wider white audience in America when he performed in 1960 at Newport.
Blues historian Ron Wynn notes that the rock ‘n roll and the social changes of the 1960s were the worst things that could have happened to the blues and to Muddy Waters. Several classic blues clubs in Chicago turned to rock ‘n roll; many blacks in the 1960s felt that the blues was a musical form of the past and would be better off forgotten. Blues audiences in the 1960s became increasingly whiter. Muddy experimented with different styles in an attempt to stay current; his 1968 album “Electric Mud” has him singing several of his classic songs accompanied by a psychedelic rock band. The blues revival of the 1970s reinvigorated the career of Muddy Waters, who released a string of popular albums before his death in 1983. Muddy had the respect of many in the music world until the very end of his life; Bonnie Raitt notes in the film even in his very last concerts “he is packin’…in his spirit.”
Muddy Waters: Can’t Be Satisfied thus presents a very satisfying account of one of the most important figures of post-war American music. What is missing, unfortunately, is any real accounting of the social changes taking place in America that Muddy or others around him experienced. Why were black attitudes towards the blues changing so radically in the 1960s? Did Muddy experience racism during any of the multitude of concert tours that he took part in from the 1950s till the end of his life? What did Muddy think of the changes that were taking place in the black community during the years of his musical popularity? None of these questions are addressed in any significant manner in this film. Nevertheless, the film does give the viewer a good idea of what all the excitement is about when a music fan discovers Muddy Waters for the very first time.
Stephen Armstrong Central Connecticut State University Steph17895@aol.com
