People, how come I can’t be happy, like everybody else? / Yeah, how come I can’t be happy, well you know like everybody else? / You know I’ve been layin’ round in Chicago, you know I just been grievin’ my fool self to death
— “Mean Disposition” by Muddy Waters
Blues music, that romping, stomping, wailing, grieving art form, came out of the singing and storytelling traditions of the African American South. But it reached its peak of power here in sweet home Chicago.
Peak of power as in exciting, electrified blues, amplified to be heard above the din of crowded clubs. Peak of power as in the brilliant collection of blues musicians who came to Chicago as part of the Black migration to live and play on the South and West sides. Those singers, writers, guitarists, harmonica players and others are mostly gone now.
We’re not writing an elegy. We’re not trying to sing the blues. The music will never die. What’s frustrating is there are too few physical landmarks in Chicago properly honoring the history of blues — not enough sites of significance in the city for visiting music fans to pay homage. That oversight feels especially obvious given the national conversation about the need for statues and monuments that respect the Black experience in America.
So it’s time to do more to honor Chicago blues, and it should start at 4339 S. Lake Park Ave. That’s the former home of Muddy Waters, the artist who got his mojo working in Chicago, who used his powerful, emotive voice to sing of being a hoochie coochie man and rollin’ stone and become one of the greatest blues performers of all time.
Waters, born McKinley Morganfield in Mississippi, came north in 1943 and owned the house in North Kenwood from 1954 to 1974. He lived there and used the basement as a rehearsal space; members of his band stayed there. Waters died in 1983. The home is vacant and in disrepair, but Waters’ great-granddaughter, Chandra Cooper, wants to convert the two-flat, red-brick residence with a coned rooftop into the Muddy Waters MOJO museum. This month, her plan got a jump-start when the National Trust for Historic Preservation awarded a $50,000 grant to Cooper’s nonprofit organization as part of a series of contributions to projects that preserve African American history.
“I want to keep my great-grandfather’s legacy alive,” Cooper tells us. “Beyond his legacy, this is the story of the Chicago blues. There are only a couple of things we have that represent the Chicago blues. We have the Chess Records building (at 2120 S. Michigan Ave.) and we have this.” She says she needs to raise $150,000 more to stabilize the property, the first step in her vision to create a museum and community center, with a lounge and recording studio in the basement and an outdoor space.
How good was Muddy Waters? Maybe the best. According to music writer Robert Palmer, “He was without peer when it came to communicating the minutest gradations of feeling –– the difference, say, between being sad with no hope and being sad but determined to carry on.” Waters wasn’t shy about his talent: “I think I’m responsible for Chicago’s blues,” he said in a 1972 documentary. “The type of blues that I sing, you must pay the costs out there. You just don’t get up and walk the streets getting whatever you want, whenever you get ready, and can sing the blues like myself.”
Blues artist Paul Oscher, a member of the Muddy Waters Blues Band from 1967 to 1971, lived in the basement. He says Waters, his home and the neighborhood are integral to the blues story. The home is sanctified ground, he tells us. “If Chopin has a house, that’s a museum. If Mozart has a house, that’s a museum. Muddy Waters needs a house that’s a museum.”
On the internet you can find a photo of Waters bandmate Otis Spann in the basement in 1959 playing with St. Louis Jimmy Oden and Otis “Big Smokey” Smothers. In a 1965 photo, Spann is rehearsing with James Cotton. Oscher, who sits on the nonprofit’s board, says mandolin player Johnny Young lived around the corner. “Little Brother” Montgomery, the pianist, would walk by. Willie “Big Eyes” Smith lived two doors down. In summer, Spann would set up his organ in the alley.
“This is the house where Muddy created all his greatest songs,” Oscher says. ” ‘Got My Mojo Working,’ ” the Newport version, the arrangement was made right there with Cotton and Spann.”
Oscher says he’ll save most of his stories about the house for a book he’s writing, but he shared one. “Cotton told me that Muddy never would come to rehearsal, but he always could know the songs perfectly when the band started playing it. Mystical stuff. Mojo,” Oscher says, before revealing the twist to the tale: Waters could hear the music from his bedroom. “He’d listen to the guys rehearsing and learn the whole song.”
Want to learn more about Chicago blues, understand its impact and keep the legacy of Muddy Waters alive? Root for the completion of the MOJO Museum. Contribute, if you wish.
But absolutely, get yourself a copy of an album such as “The Best of Muddy Waters” and give it a listen. That LP is the one that two British teenagers, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, once bonded over. One of the songs inspired the name of their band, the Rolling Stones.
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