Muddy Waters

USA, 1941–1983

American blues singer and guitarist, known as the Father of Chicago Blues. He amplified Delta blues for a city audience, and his band supplied much of the repertoire and instrumentation later used by rock and roll.

MusicRoots documents 2 artists who influenced Muddy Waters and 32 artists Muddy Waters influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Muddy Waters?

• Son House — Muddy Waters called Son House his most important teacher.
• Robert Johnson — Muddy took over Robert Johnson's repertoire and slide technique.

Which artists did Muddy Waters influence?

• Steppenwolf — Steppenwolf's blues roots show plainly: their debut covers the Willie Dixon / Muddy Waters classic 'Hoochie Coochie Man'.
• Grateful Dead — Muddy Waters and Chicago blues were where Jerry Garcia's electric playing started.
• Creedence Clearwater Revival — Muddy Waters' blues is the foundation Fogerty built the swamp-rock sound upon.
• Small Faces — Muddy Waters and Chicago blues were at the root of Small Faces' R&B energy.
• Traffic — Muddy Waters' blues tradition is the root from which Traffic's blues-rock grew.
• The Spencer Davis Group — Muddy Waters and Chicago blues were the foundation of Spencer Davis Group's R&B sound.
• Blue Cheer — Muddy Waters' electric blues was taken to its loudest extreme by Blue Cheer.
• The Doors — Robby Krieger cited Muddy Waters as the Doors' primary blues reference.
• The Kinks — Muddy Waters was a key early blues reference for The Kinks in the British blues-rock period.
• The Animals — Muddy Waters was the Animals' central Chicago blues reference, per Burdon's memoir.
• The Yardbirds — Muddy Waters was the Yardbirds' foundational blues reference, per Clapton.
• Chuck Berry — It was Muddy Waters who brought Chuck Berry to Chess Records.
• The Rolling Stones — The band took its name from Muddy Waters's song 'Rollin' Stone'.
• Jimi Hendrix — Hendrix recalled that the first blues that scared him was Muddy Waters's.
• Cream — Waters's Chicago blues is the foundation of Cream's repertoire.
• Led Zeppelin — Waters's electric Chicago blues underpins Zeppelin's heavy blues rock.
• Jerry Lee Lewis — Muddy Waters's electric blues was among the Black R&B sounds that fed Lewis's rock'n'roll.
• The Allman Brothers Band — Muddy Waters's electric Chicago blues was a bedrock of the band's repertoire and improvisational base.
• Eric Clapton — Muddy Waters was, in Clapton's words, 'the father figure I never really had' — the Chicago electric blues at the root of his playing.
• Lynyrd Skynyrd — Delta and Chicago blues were Skynyrd's bedrock — Muddy Waters among the bluesmen at the root of their sound.
• ZZ Top — Muddy Waters's electric Chicago blues is the bedrock of ZZ Top — the tradition Gibbons set out to carry on 'with a bit more dirt under their boots'.
• Van Morrison — Muddy Waters's electric blues was among the records Morrison absorbed growing up in Belfast.
• Captain Beefheart — Muddy Waters's electric Chicago blues was a core source Van Vliet absorbed before fracturing it.
• AC/DC — From Muddy Waters's electric Chicago blues the Youngs took the taste for emotionally charged phrases built from few elements.
• Fleetwood Mac — Early Fleetwood Mac was a Chicago-blues repertory band — they recorded Blues Jam in Chicago at Chess with Muddy Waters's sidemen in 1969.
• Jethro Tull — Tull began as a blues band — the Chicago blues of Muddy Waters was the documented base of the This Was era.
• The Jeff Beck Group — Muddy Waters's electric Chicago blues was the raw material the group overdrove into proto-hard-rock.
• The Paul Butterfield Blues Band — Butterfield learned electric blues first-hand on Chicago's South Side — Muddy Waters was a direct mentor and model.
• Bonnie Raitt — Raitt came up among the blues greats — Muddy Waters's electric Chicago blues shaped her bar-band roots.
• Buddy Guy — Guy played as a Chess session guitarist alongside Muddy Waters, who became a mentor and defining influence.
• Steve Miller — In Chicago Miller played with Muddy Waters — the electric Chicago blues under his early sound.
• The Black Keys — The Black Keys reached back to Chicago-blues bedrock — their debut The Big Come Up covered Muddy Waters alongside Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside.