By what name is the father of Chicago blues, McKinley Morganfield, more commonly known?

McKinley (Muddy Waters) Morganfield was born in April 1913 or 1915 (the date isn't conclusively known), in Jug's Corner, Issaquena County, in the southern Mississippi Delta. His grandmother began calling him "Muddy" when he was an infant because he liked playing in the mud in the nearby Deer Creek, and when he was a child on the plantation playmates added the surname "Waters".

Muddy Waters began making music when he was 3 or 4 years old. He began performing on harmonica at country picnics and fish fries when he was 12 or 13. Robert Johnson influenced him, and so did the impassioned singer-guitarist Son House. But he also listened to commercial blues recordings by Memphis Minnie, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red, and Blind Lemon Jefferson on a neighbour's phonograph.

in 1943 he moved to Chicago. The following year he acquired an electric guitar, and by 1948 his band, with Jimmy Rogers on second guitar, Little Walter on harmonica, and Baby Face Leroy on guitar and drums, was the most popular blues combo working on Chicago's black South Side.

The songs that Waters recorded and performed in the 1950's included "Hoochie Coochie Man," "Just Make Love To Me," "She Moves Me," "Mannish Boy," and "Louisiana Blues." He acquired national and international recognition for his classic Chicago blues sound.

"This is the best point of my life that I'm living right now," he said in 1978. "I'm glad it came before I died, I can tell you." Waters died on April 30th 1983.