McKinley Morganfield, known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago blues". His style of playing has been described as "raining down Delta beatitude".
Muddy Waters (1913–1983) was an American blues artist widely considered to be one of the most important figures in post-World War II Chicago blues. He popularized several early Delta blues songs, such as "Rollin' and Tumblin'", Walkin' Blues", and "Baby, Please Don't Go", and recorded songs that went on to become blues standards, including "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Mannish Boy", and "Got My Mojo Working". During his recording career from 1941 to 1981, he recorded primarily for two record companies, Aristocrat/Chess and Blue Sky; they issued 62 singles and 13 studio albums.
Benjamin Franklin Peay, better known as Brook Benton, was an American singer and songwriter who was popular with rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and pop music audiences during the late 1950s and early 1960s, with hits such as "It's Just a Matter of Time" and "Endlessly", many of which he co-wrote.
Marion Walter Jacobs, known as Little Walter, was an American blues musician, singer, and songwriter, whose revolutionary approach to the harmonica had a strong impact on succeeding generations, earning him comparisons to such seminal artists as Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix. His virtuosity and musical innovations fundamentally altered many listeners' expectations of what was possible on blues harmonica. He was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, the first and, to date, only artist to be inducted specifically as a harmonica player.
Johnny Rivers is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. His repertoire includes pop, folk, blues, and old-time rock 'n' roll. Rivers charted during the 1960s and 1970s but remains best known for a string of hit singles between 1964 and 1968, among them "Memphis", "Mountain of Love", "The Seventh Son", "Secret Agent Man", "Poor Side of Town", "Baby I Need Your Lovin'", and "Summer Rain".
Percy Tyrone Sledge was an American R&B, soul and gospel singer. He is best known for the song "When a Man Loves a Woman", a No. 1 hit on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B singles charts in 1966. It was awarded a million-selling, Gold-certified disc from the RIAA.
Saul "Sol" Rabinowitz was an American music business executive. He was the founder and lead producer of Baton Records, an independent record label that recorded rhythm and blues music in New York City during the 1950s.
Ann Cole was an American R&B and gospel singer who has been described as "a genuinely great soul singer who had the misfortune to be too far ahead of her time". She had several minor hits in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but is now most noted as the original performer of "Got My Mojo Working", later popularised by Muddy Waters.
At Newport 1960 is a live album by Muddy Waters recorded during his performance at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 3, 1960. With his longtime backup band, Muddy Waters plays a mix of his older popular tunes and some newer compositions. Chess Records released the album in the United States on November 15, 1960.
"Hoochie Coochie Man" is a blues standard written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. The song makes reference to hoodoo folk magic elements and makes novel use of a stop-time musical arrangement. It became one of Waters' most popular and identifiable songs and helped secure Dixon's role as Chess Records' chief songwriter.
"Got My Mojo Working" is a blues song written by Preston "Red" Foster and first recorded by R&B singer Ann Cole in 1956. Foster's lyrics describe several amulets or talismans, called mojo, which are associated with hoodoo, an early African-American folk-magic belief system.
"It's Just a Matter of Time" is a popular song written by Brook Benton, Clyde Otis, and Belford Hendricks. The original recording by Benton topped the Billboard Hot R&B Sides chart in 1959 and peaked at No. 3 on the Hot 100 pop chart, the first in a string of hits for Benton that ran through 1970.
"Mona Lisa" is a popular song written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston for the Paramount Pictures film Captain Carey, U.S.A. (1950). The title and lyrics refer to the renaissance portrait Mona Lisa painted by Leonardo da Vinci. The song won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1950.
Cadillac Records is a 2008 American biographical drama film written and directed by Darnell Martin. The film explores the musical era from the early 1940s to the late 1960s, chronicling the life of the influential Chicago-based record-company executive Leonard Chess, and a few of the musicians who recorded for Chess Records.
"Cry to Me" is a song written by Bert Berns and first recorded by American soul singer Solomon Burke in 1961. Released in 1962, it was Burke's second single to appear in both Billboard magazine's Hot R&B Sides and Hot 100 singles charts. Several other artists recorded the song, including Betty Harris (1963), the Pretty Things (1965), the Rolling Stones (1965), Freddie Scott (1967) and others.
Vintage is the sixth album by Canned Heat. Produced by Johnny Otis, the album featured the Muddy Waters/Elmore James' song "Rollin' and Tumblin'" recorded with and without Alan Wilson's harmonica leads. These sessions have surfaced on a multiple of reissues including, Don't Forget to Boogie: Vintage Heat (2002), Vintage Canned Heat (1996), Eternal Boogie, Canned Heat in Concert and various other releases.
"Baby Face" Leroy Foster was an American blues singer, drummer and guitarist, active in Chicago from the mid-1940s until the late 1950s. He was a significant figure in the development of the postwar electric Chicago blues sound, notably as a member of the Muddy Waters band during its formative years.
The Real Folk Blues is a 1966 compilation album of Muddy Waters recordings, released on the Chess record label in January 1966. The album was the first release of The Real Folk Blues series and has since been re-released in multiple formats. The album features some of Waters' first recordings.
Fathers and Sons is the seventh studio album by the American blues musician Muddy Waters, released as a double LP by Chess Records in August 1969.
Breakin' It Up, Breakin' It Down is a blues album by Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter, and James Cotton. It was recorded live in 1977, and released in 2007. It reached number 3 on the Billboard Blues Albums chart.
