Larry "Mud" Morganfield (born September 27, 1954) is an American

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

singer and the eldest son of

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 b ...

Early life

Morganfield was born to McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters) and Mildred Williams in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. He was raised by his mother and seven uncles, with occasional visits from Muddy, and never really got to know his father. Regarding his childhood in Chicago, Morganfield says, "I didn’t have the pleasure of getting up and walking down the lakefront and watching the ocean and the lakes or something. I came up and there was gunshots and someone may have gotten hit down the street. I mean, I’ve seen the drunks, the drugs, and I tell you again, I can’t forget these things because it makes up who I am today. It makes me the man I am today." Despite growing up surrounded by music, Morganfield did not consider becoming a professional musician until after his father’s death in 1983. At that time, Morganfield was driving trucks for a living, but the strain was wearing on him. He suggested that a recurring dream of Muddy Waters performing on stage helped prompt him to begin performing the blues professionally.

Career

Morganfield has described the resemblance of the tone and

timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or musical tone, tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voice ...

of his voice to that of his father’s voice as a double-edged sword. The similarity is evident in ''For Pops: A Tribute To Muddy Waters'', an album on which he performs several Muddy Waters songs. Morganfield launched his music career in blues clubs on the

south side of Chicago The South Side is an area of Chicago, Illinois, U.S. It lies south of the city's Loop area in the downtown. Geographically, it is the largest of the three sides of the city that radiate from downtown, with the other two being the north and w ...

, where he performed a mix of his father’s material and his own original works. Regarding his performances of Muddy Waters songs in addition to his own material, Morganfield says, "I started to sing to show the world that dad left me here. I love and am proud to sing his songs just like I love and will always be proud of him. I'm not Muddy Waters and I'm certainly not trying to be Muddy Waters. I'm Mud Morganfield, but when I'm up on stage I always feel Pops is there with me and it means so much that I can get on stage and keep his music alive around the world." In May 2015, his album, ''For Pops: A Tribute To Muddy Waters'', won a

Blues Music Award The Blues Music Awards, formerly known as the W. C. Handy Awards (or "The Handys"), are awards presented by the Blues Foundation, a non-profit organization set up to foster blues heritage. The awards were originally named in honor of W. C. Handy, " ...

in the 'Traditional Blues Album' category.

Discography

*''Fall Waters Fall'' (2008) *''Son of a Seventh Son'' (2012) *''For Pops: A Tribute To Muddy Waters'' (2014) *''They Call Me Mud'' (2018) *''Portrait'' (2022)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Morganfield, Larry 1954 births Living people Singers from Chicago Blues musicians from Illinois American blues singers 21st-century African-American male singers