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I'm Ready (Muddy Waters Album)
''I'm Ready'' is a studio album by the Chicago blues musician Muddy Waters. The second of his Johnny Winter-produced albums for the Blue Sky Records label, ''I'm Ready'' was issued one year after he found renewed commercial and critical success with ''Hard Again''. The album earned Waters a Grammy Award in 1978. It was reissued in 2004 by the Epic/Legacy, with three additional songs. Track listing All tracks are composed by Muddy Waters (listed as McKinley Morganfield), except where noted. Personnel * Muddy Waters – vocal, guitar * Jimmy Rogers – guitar, vocals (track 11) * Big Walter Horton – harmonica * Bob Margolin – guitar, bass * Pinetop Perkins – piano * Willie "Big Eyes" Smith – drums * Johnny Winter – guitar (tracks 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9) * Jerry Portnoy Jerry Portnoy (born November 25, 1943 in Evanston, Illinois, United States) is an American harmonica blues musician, who has toured with Muddy Waters and Eric Clapto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), 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 grew up on Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, and by age 17 was playing the guitar and the harmonica, emulating the local blues artists Son House and Robert Johnson."His thick heavy voice, the dark colouration of his tone, and his firm, almost solid, personality were all clearly derived from House," wrote the music historian Peter Guralnick in ''Feel Like Going Home'', "but the embellishments, which he added, the imaginative slide technique and more agile rhythms, were closer to Johnson." He was recorded in Mississippi by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in 1941. In 1943, he moved to Chicago to become a full-time professi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I'm Ready (Muddy Waters Song)
"I'm Ready" is a blues song written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. It was a hit, spending nine weeks on the ''Billboard'' R&B chart where it reached number four. The song became a blues standard and has been compared to "Hoochie Coochie Man", the standard also written by Dixon that Waters recorded earlier in 1954. Composition and recording "I'm Ready" was inspired by a comment by Muddy Waters prior to a gig, when harmonica player Willie Foster visited him at home. As Foster recalled, Dixon proceeded to write a song and "I'm Ready" was completed within about three days. The lyrics continue the use of swagger and supernatural imagery found in Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man", which Waters recorded in January 1954: In addition to the lyrical theme, "I'm Ready" incorporates a stop-time sixteen-bar structure analogous to "Hoochie Coochie Man". The song was recorded September 1, 1954, by Waters on vocal and guitar, accompanied by Little Walter on ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1978 Albums
Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd government). * January 6 – The Holy Crown of Hungary (also known as Stephen of Hungary Crown) is returned to Hungary from the United States, where it was held since World War II. * January 10 – Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, a critic of the Nicaraguan government, is assassinated; riots erupt against Somoza's government. * January 18 – The European Court of Human Rights finds the British government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture. * January 22 – Ethiopia declares the ambassador of West Germany '' persona non grata''. * January 24 ** Soviet satellite Kosmos 954 burns up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering debris over Canada's Northwest Territories. ** Rose Dugdale and Eddie Gallagher become the first convic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerry Portnoy
Jerry Portnoy (born November 25, 1943 in Evanston, Illinois, United States) is an American harmonica blues musician, who has toured with Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton. Biography Portnoy grew up in Chicago. He first heard the blues played outside his father's carpet store in the Maxwell Street market in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Maxwell Street was a mecca for blues musicians, who would play on the street for tips. Little Walter, Jimmy Rogers, Johnny Young, Big Walter Horton and many others all played on Maxwell Street. Portnoy began to perform professionally in 1970, touring the Midwest with the band of Johnny Young (guitar/mandolin). Two years later, he left Johnny Young, but continued to perform around the Midwest in the bands of guitarist Johnny Littlejohn and, later, drummer Sam Lay. For a time, he was also a member of the house band at the Checkerboard Lounge. He joined the Muddy Waters Blues Band in May 1974 and appeared on the albums ''I'm Ready'', ''Muddy 'Miss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willie "Big Eyes" Smith
Willie Lee "Big Eyes" Smith (January 19, 1936 – September 16, 2011) was an American electric blues vocalist, harmonica player, and drummer. He was best known for several stints with the Muddy Waters band beginning in the early 1960s. Biography Born in Helena, Arkansas, Smith learned to play harmonica at age 17 after moving to Chicago, Illinois. His influences included listening to 78's and the KFFA King Biscuit radio show, some of which were broadcast from Helena's Miller Theater, where he saw guitar player Joe Willie Wilkins, and harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson II. On a Chicago visit in 1953 his mother took him to hear Muddy Waters at the Zanzibar club, where Henry Strong's harp playing inspired him to learn that instrument. In 1956, at the age of eighteen he formed a trio. He led the band on harp, Bobby Lee Burns played guitar and Clifton James was the drummer. As "Little Willie" Smith he played in the Rocket Four, led by blues guitarist Arthur "Big Boy" Spires, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinetop Perkins
Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins (July 7, 1913 – March 21, 2011) was an American blues pianist. He played with some of the most influential blues and rock-and-roll performers of his time and received numerous honors, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Blues Hall of Fame. Life and career Early career Perkins was born in Belzoni, Mississippi and raised on a plantation in Honey Island, Mississippi. He began his career as a guitarist but then injured the tendons in his left arm in a knife fight with a chorus girl in Helena, Arkansas in the 1940s. Unable to play the guitar, he switched to the piano. He also moved from Robert Nighthawk's radio program on KFFA to Sonny Boy Williamson's ''King Biscuit Time''. He continued working with Nighthawk, however, accompanying him on "Jackson Town Gal" in 1950. In the 1950s, Perkins joined Earl Hooker and began touring. He recorded "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" at Sam Phillips's Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Walter Horton
Walter Horton (April 6, 1921 – December 8, 1981), known as Big Walter (Horton) or Walter 'Shakey' Horton, was an American blues harmonica player. A quiet, unassuming, shy man, he is remembered as one of the premier harmonica players in the history of blues. Willie Dixon once called Horton 'the best harmonica player I ever heard'. Robert Palmer named him as 'one of the three great harmonica soloists of modern blues with the two others being cited as Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson II. Also known as 'Mumbles', 'Shakey', along with 'Tangle Eye' and 'Shakey Head' (because of his head motion whilst playing the harmonica, along with his suffering from nystagmus). Horton was known for his unique tongue-blocking techniques and tone. Biography 1920s Horton was born in Horn Lake, Mississippi. He claimed to be born in 1917, but his birth date is often cited as April 6, 1918. Various sources give the year as 1917 or 1921, although it is most likely he was born in 1921. He was p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Margolin
Bob Margolin (born May 9, 1949) is an American electric blues guitarist. His nickname is Steady Rollin'. Biography Margolin started playing guitar in 1964, and his first appearance on record was with Boston psychedelic band The Freeborne, and their 1967 album ''Peak Impressions''. Margolin was a backing musician for Muddy Waters from 1973 to 1980, performing with Waters and The Band in ''The Last Waltz''. As a solo recording artist, he has recorded albums for Alligator Records, Blind Pig, Telarc and his own Steady Rollin' record label. In 1977 he appeared on Johnny Winter's album ''Nothin' But The Blues'' along with Muddy Waters, Pinetop Perkins, James Cotton, and others. In 1978, he made a guest appearance on Big Joe Duskin's debut album, ''Cincinnati Stomp'', on Arhoolie Records. In 1979, he made a guest appearance, along with Pinetop Perkins, on The Nighthawks album, ''Jacks & Kings''. In 1994, he appeared with Jerry Portnoy as guest musicians on the album, ''Ice Cream Man' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
That's Alright
"That's All Right"or "That's Alright" is a blues song adapted by Chicago blues singer and guitarist Jimmy Rogers. He recorded it in 1950 with Little Walter on harmonica. Although based on earlier blues songs, music writer John Collis calls Rogers' rendition "one of the most tuneful and instantly memorable of all variations on the basic blues format". The song became a blues standard and has been recorded by numerous blues and other artists. Origins Jimmy Rogers has acknowledged that "That's All Right" draws on ideas from other bluesmen, including Robert Junior Lockwood and Willie Love. However, he feels he pulled it all together: "I put some verses with it and built it that way. I built the song". Lockwood had performed it years earlier in Helena, Arkansas, which Muddy Waters confirmed: "'That's All Right', that Robert Jr.'s song", he added. In 1947, Othum Brown recorded "Ora Nelle Blues" (Chance 1116), described as "substantially the same song". Little Walter on harmoni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonny Boy Williamson I
John Lee Curtis "Sonny Boy" Williamson (March 30, 1914 – June 1, 1948) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. He is often regarded as the pioneer of the blues harp as a solo instrument. He played on hundreds of recordings by many pre–World War II blues artists. Under his own name, he was one of the most recorded blues musicians of the 1930s and 1940s and is closely associated with Chicago producer Lester Melrose and Bluebird Records. His popular songs, original or adapted, include "Good Morning, School Girl", " Sugar Mama", " Early in the Morning", and " Stop Breaking Down". Williamson's harmonica style was a great influence on postwar performers. Later in his career, he was a mentor to many up-and-coming blues musicians who moved to Chicago, including Muddy Waters. In an attempt to capitalize on Williamson's fame, Aleck "Rice" Miller began recording and performing as Sonny Boy Williamson in the early 1940s, and later, to distinguish the two, Joh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Good Morning, School Girl
"Good Morning, School Girl" is a blues standard that has been identified as an influential part of the blues canon. Pre-war Chicago blues vocalist and harmonica pioneer John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson first recorded it in 1937. Subsequently, a variety of artists have recorded versions of the song, usually calling it "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl". Original song Sonny Boy Williamson I recorded "Good Morning, School Girl" in 1937 during his first recording session for Bluebird Records. The song is an uptempo blues with an irregular number of bars. Although identified with Chicago blues, a write-up in the Blues Hall of Fame notes "it was a product of Sonny Boy’s west Tennessee roots and his pre-Chicago ensemble work". The melody has been traced to “Back and Side Blues”, a 1934 blues song recorded by Son Bonds. "Good Morning, School Girl" features Williamson's vocal and harmonica with accompaniment by Big Joe Williams and Robert Lee McCoy (also known as Robert Nighthawk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rock Me Baby (song)
"Rock Me Baby" is a blues standard that has become one of the most recorded blues songs of all time. It originated as "Rockin' and Rollin'", a 1951 song by Lil' Son Jackson, itself inspired by earlier blues. Renditions by Muddy Waters and B.B. King made the song well-known. When B.B. King's recording of "Rock Me Baby" was released in 1964, it became his first single to reach the Top 40 in ''Billboard'' magazine's Hot 100 chart. In 2022, King's recording was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in the 'Classics of Blues Recording – Singles' category. Earlier songs B.B. King's "Rock Me Baby" is based on the 1951 song "Rockin' and Rollin'" by Lil' Son Jackson. King's lyrics are nearly identical to Jackson's, although instrumentally the songs are different: "Rockin' and Rollin'" is a solo piece, with Jackson's vocal and guitar accompaniment, whereas "Rock Me Baby" is an ensemble piece. Muddy Waters' song "Rock Me", recorded in 1956, is also based on Jackson's song. Some of J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
