Muddy Waters, Blues Legend Trivia Quiz

Answer: Baby, Please Don't Go

"Baby, please don't go
Down to New Orleans, you know I love you so.
Before I be your dog...
I get you way'd out here, and let you walk alone
Turn your lamp down low...
I beg you all night long, baby, please don't go."

The Delta Blues musician Big Joe Williams popularized this old blues standard in 1935, and Muddy Waters recorded his version in 1953. John Lee Hooker also recorded a soulful version of the song in 1959, from which Them's version was derived. Them, with 19-year-old Van Morrison as their lead singer, released "Baby, Please Don't Go" as a single in 1964 in the U.K. and in 1965 in the U.S. with "Gloria" on the B-side.

Van Morrison was influenced by Muddy Waters and alludes to him in his song "And the Healing Has Begun":

"Let's just sit down and take tea
I'll just move over there a little bit now
Yeah, I'm gonna play this Muddy Waters record you got there
Oh, if you just open up a little bit
And let me come on in one some backstreet jellyroll."

Answer: McKinley

Muddy Waters was born McKinley Morganfield on April 4, 1913. He grew up near Clarksdale, Mississippi, on the Stovall Plantation. His grandmother nicknamed him Muddy because of his penchant for playing in muddy creek water.

Answer: rollin' stone

"Well, I wish I was a catfish,
Swimmin in a oh, deep, blue sea
I would have all you good lookin women,
Fishin, fishin after me...
Well, my mother told my father,
Just before hmmm, I was born,
"I got a boy child's comin',
Gonna be, he gonna be a rollin' stone,
Sure 'nough, he's a rollin' stone."

Muddy Waters released "Rollin' Stone" as a single in 1950 with "Walkin' Blues" on the B-side. The band The Rolling Stones, which was formed in 1962, took its name from this song, and it also inspired the name of Rolling Stone Magazine. The song is based on "Catfish Blues," a Delta blues song from the 1920s originating in Mississippi.

Answer: rock and roll

These lines come from the song "The Blues Had a Baby And They Named It Rock and Roll."

"All you people, you know the blues got a soul
Well this is a story, a story never been told
Well you know the blues got pregnant
And they named the baby rock and roll."

Muddy Waters wrote this song with Brownie McGhee and recorded a version of it on "Hard Again," which was released in 1977.

Answer: 1970s

Johnny Winter produced "Hard Again" (1977), "I'm Ready" (1978) and "Muddy 'Mississippi' Waters - Live" (1979). Johnny Winter is a blues guitarist who won a Grammy for his own 2015 blues album "Step Back" and was nominated for "Let Me In" in the Contemporary Blues Album category in 1993.

Born in Beaumont, Texas in 1944, he was ranked 63 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time."

Answer: Buddy Guy

"Muddy Waters said it, you know the blues got a soul
James Brown said it, you know the blues got a soul
Well the blues had a baby and they named the baby rock & roll
Ray Charles said it, you know the blues got a soul
John Lee Hooker said it, you know the blues got a soul
Well the blues had a baby and they named the baby rock & roll
Otis Redding said it, you know the blues got a soul
Queen Victoria said it, you know the blues got a soul
Well the blues had a baby and they named the baby Rock & Roll."

Otis Redding is a soul singer well known for songs such as "Sitting by the Dock of the Bay" and "Try a Little Tenderness." Ray Charles, also called "Brother Ray" and "The Genius" combined blues, gospel, and R&B in his music, which won 17 Grammy Awards. John Lee Hooker was a blues singer and guitarist famous for his electric-guitar style Delta blues.

Answer: Mannish Boy

"I'm a man (yeah)
I spell M
A, child
N
That represent man
No B
O, child
Y
That spell mannish boy
I'm a man
I'm a full-grown man."

"Mannish Boy" was released as a single in 1955 with "Young Fashioned Ways" on the B-Side. The song is credited to Muddy Waters along with Mel London and Bo Diddley. It is, in part, likely a response to the condescending and racist tendency to call a black man a "boy" in the South in which Muddy Waters grew up.

Answer: make love to you

"I Just Want to Make Love To You" (or "Make Love to Me") was written by Willie Dixon and released as a single by Muddy Waters in 1954 with "Oh Yeh" on the B-side. Etta James covered it on her debut album "At Last!" Her version peaked at number five on the UK Singles Chart. The blues rock group Foghat also included it on their 1972 debut album.

Answer: Mustang Sally

James Henke, the chief curator for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with several music critics and writers, chose 500 songs they believed to have been the most influential in shaping rock and roll music. "Rollin' Stone" was the fourth Muddy Waters song included on the list, in addition to "Mannish Boy," "Got My Mojo Working," and "Hoochie Coochie Man."

"Mustang Sally" was written and recorded by Mack Rice in 1965.

Answer: A talisman

"Got My Mojo Working" was written by Preston "Red" Foster and first recorded in 1956 by Ann Cole, but it was Muddy Waters who popularized the song in 1957, releasing it as a single with "Rock Me" on the B-side.

The mojo is a magic charm, talisman, amulet, or spell associated with an early African-American folk-magic spirituality know as hoodoo (or low country voodoo), which originated in the Gullah South Carolina Lowcountry as a blend and evolution of West African spiritual beliefs and traditions.

Answer: Robert Johnson

In the early 1950s, Muddy Waters's band consisted of Little Walter Jacobs on harmonica, Elga Edmonds on drums, Jimmy Rogers on guitar, and Otis Spann on piano. Together, they recorded standards such as "Hoochie Coochie Man," "I'm Ready," and "I Just Want to Make Love to You." They also sometimes recorded with songwriter and blues bassist Willie Dixon. Robert Johnson died in 1938 at the age of 27, before Muddy Waters began recording.

Answer: Howlin' Wolf

Willie Dixon wrote songs for both Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. According to "Rubber City Review," Muddy initially gave Howlin' Wolf a warm welcome and even let him stay in his home. "But they soon became rivals, largely due to Wolf's highly competitive and jealous nature. In 1955, Wolf even filed a grievance with Chicago's African American chapter of the American Federation of Musicians claiming Muddy had stiffed him out of some gigs at a local club."

Answer: Long Distance Call

"You say you love me, darling
Please, call me on the phone sometime
You say you love me, darling
Please, call me on the phone sometime
When I hear your voice
Ease my worried mind."

In 1951, Muddy Waters released "Long Distance Call" as a single with "Too Young To Know" on the B-side. It peaked at number eight on the US R&B chart and was included on "The Best of Muddy Waters," which was released in 1958. The song is based on Blind Lemon Jefferson's song "Long Distance Moan," which was first recorded in 1929.

Answer: I'm Ready

"I'm ready, as ready as anybody can be
I'm ready, ready as anybody can be
I'm ready for you, I hope you ready for me

I got a axe-handled pistol on my graveyard frame
That shoot tombstone bullets, wearing balls and chain
I'm drinking TNT, I'm smoking dynamite
I hope some screwball start a fight."

Muddy Waters was the first to record "I'm Ready." He released the song as a single in 1954 with "I Don't Know Why" on the B-side. It peaked at number four on the Billboard R&B chart. The writer, Willie Dixon, is recognized, along with Muddy Waters, as being one of the most influential shapers of the Chicago blues.

Answer: Electric Mud

In "Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters," Robert Gordon quotes Muddy as saying, "That Electric Mud record I did, that one was dog---." Members of the Rotary Connection served as backing members on the album, which Muddy described as having "all this wow-wow and fuzztone." It fused psychedelic music with electric blues.

Despite the criticism heaped on the album, it did reach number 127 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Answer: Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording

Muddy Waters won in the category of "Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording" for six different albums. He won in 1972 for "They Call Me Muddy Waters," in 1973 for "The London Muddy Waters Sessions," in 1975 for "The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album," in 1978 for "Hard Again," in 1979 for "I'm Ready," and in 1980 for "Muddy 'Mississippi' Waters Live." Those last three albums were produced by Johnny Winter.

In 1992, he also received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Answer: false

He was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1980 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. In addition to these two inductions and his many Grammys, Muddy Waters has also won several Blues Foundation Awards, including Traditional Blues Album of the Year for "The Lost Tapes of Muddy Waters" and Historical Blues Album of the year for "Fathers and Sons."

Answer: The Library of Congress

In 1941, American ethnomusicologis Alan Lomax recorded Muddy Waters for the Library of Congress as part of its folk song collecting project. Funding for the project was cut off in 1942, but Alan Lomax continued his work independently. Aristocrat released Muddy Waters' next set of singles, "Gypsy Woman" / "Little Anna Mae," in 1948, followed by several more. Chess was next in 1950 with "Rollin' Stone" / "Walkin' Blues," and continued to release Muddy Water singles until the 1970s, when Blue Sky took over for the blues man.

Answer: Trouble No More

"Don't care how long you gone
I don't care how long you staying
But, good kind treatment
Gonna bring you home someday
But someday baby
You ain't gonna trouble poor me anymore."

"Trouble No More" is a variation on "Someday Baby Blues," which was first recorded in 1935 by Sleepy John Estes. "Trouble No More" was released as a Chess single, and in 1956 it hit number seven on the Billboard R&B chart.

Answer: satisfied

"I Can't Be Satisfied" was released as a single by Chess Records in 1948 and later re-recorded on "Hard Again" in 1977. "Hard Again" was Muddy Waters first album since leaving Chess, and it won the Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording. It contained two other Chess Records re-recordings: "Mannish Boy" and "I Want to Be Loved."