Muddy Waters: The Mojo Man

by Sandra Tooze

Book Overview

This biography based on original interviews conducted in Mississippi and Chicago, brigns together the complete record of the first of the great Chicago bluesmen. Born and raised on a Mississippi plantation, Muddy Waters was discovered in 1941, and two years later moved to Chicago whrre he pioneered what came to be know as urban, or electric blues. Sandra Tooze explores Muddy's dramatic life as a bootlegger, gambler, ladies man, and legendary blues...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1550222961
• ISBN13: 9781550222968
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: ECW Press
• Length: 383 Pages
• Weight: 1.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.7" x 9.7"

Customer Reviews

Very Informative and a must for every blues fan.

I found this book hard to put down. Ms Tooze does an excellent job of portraying Muddy through a series of interviews with his bandmates. All of Muddy's former bandmates are full of praise for Muddy with the exception of the brilliant drummer Francis Clay who did not really get along very well with Muddy. What I particularly liked about the style of the book is the way Ms Tooze introduces Muddy's bandmates as they join his band. Marshall Chess chips in with quite a few interesting insights on the relationship of Muddy with Phil & Leonard Chess. I might not agree with all of Ms Tooze's reviews of Muddy's albums, but then it's simply a question of personal taste. Cheers & keep up the good work.

a must read for any fan of music

I have never read a book about Muddy Waters that proved to be so informative. I've been reading about Muddy for years and this book offered up new information of which I had not been aware. Ms. Tooze did a heck of a job researching this book. I beleive she had her MOJO workin'.

crying and laughing

My wife got this book for me, as she knew my love of the blues and Muddy in particular. I am not even at page 100 yet and I was sitting down with this book earlier, popping The Chess Box of Muddy Water in, and listening to his first commercially recorded songs while reading about it - I was crying and laughing... thank you for this book!

my muddy bible

i`m speechless,i was a big muddy fan for 25 year`s.now i`m a real BIG FAN,i mean,the biggest.mighty fine book,really great pictures,thank you,sandra.b tooze,bye for now,i gotta go read my bible.

Good writing and competent judgements

Of all Blues biographies I've read, this is by far the best. Tooze not only writes about Muddy Waters by perpetuating the standard myths but as she goes along a history of Chicago blues unfolds with Muddy right in the middle. The author can paint the full picture of a throbbing blues scene and she brings it to life. All of this extremely well written and not your average bottom English biography of popular musicians. The only negative aspect is that eventually there are too many names being mentioned which at times gets teadious. But then again, this way she mentions everybody around, so there was no way around eventual namedropping