Robert Gordon - Cant Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters

Acclaim for

The Life and Times of Muddy Waters

Cant Be Satisfied is as colorful as the tones of Muddy Waterss voice and as much an essay in the foibles and triumphs of human nature as are the lyrics to Muddys best songs... Its full of crisp, brightly written tales of knifings and shootings, swindles, adultery, and illegitimate births, drugs, and alcoholism, and then theres the musicthe steaming cauldron of Delta acoustic blues and urban rhythms and amplification from which rock and roll emerged.

Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix

This is way better than the typical blues book. Cant Be Satisfied does justice to an American legend.

Leopold Froehlich, Playboy

Through deep historical, cultural, and social research, Robert Gordon spins the story not just of Americas original bluesman but of the birth and evolution of this uniquely American music.

Nelson Taylor, Providence Journal

A rich, knowing book... a full and oft-disturbing portrait of an artist at once sexually driven and emotionally remote... Gordons a solid historian and a crackling, jivey stylist; he feels the earthy swing of Muddys music and the funk of the juke houses and clubs that spawned it.

Chris Morris, LA Weekly

Men dont come more masculine than Muddy Waters... Gordon, whose crisp writing, acute insights, and obvious passion for the music fuel his work, has written a book as large as that man.

Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle

Indispensable.

David Gates, Bookforum

Thoroughly entertaining... brimming with anecdotes from Waterss family, friends, coworkers, and band mates.

Buddy Blue, San Diego Union-Tribune

Gordon places Waters in musical and social history without becoming pedantic and, equally important, places the man in a world we can see and feel.

Michael Lydon, New York Times Book Review

A compelling, complete, and entertaining discourse on the man Keith Richards called the codebook between blues, rock and roll, and the other forms of music... Its the lesser-known details of Waterss life that fascinate and make Gordons book so vital.

Regis Behe, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Gordon interviewed seemingly everyone alive who knew Waters, and to judge from his bibliography he has read everything, too. And, most important, he loves the music and offers insightful observations of the records.

Frank Reiss, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Compellingly written... A well-documented, anecdote-filled biography... The books extensive footnotes offer a treasure trove of interesting facts and fascinating stories about the American blues scene.

Martin Brady, Bookpage

Gordon tells it straight... He reveals the boozing, gambling, and womanizing of dangerous bluesmen on the road packing pistols, profanity, and half-pints and occasionally making music for the ages.

Marty Racine, Houston Chronicle

Richly detailed... Cant Be Satisfied is likely to be the definitive treatment of perhaps the genres definitive artist, a work of musical biography and history that should have the same durability and relevance that Guralnicks treatments of Elvis Presley (Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love) have had.

Chris Herrington, Memphis Flyer

Cant Be Satisfied reads more like a novel than a biography... If you want the truth about Muddy Waters, about the development of the blues in the United States, about race relations, about large parts of the record business, about the road, and about the myriad of things that figure into a not-so-simple life, then youll need Cant Be Satisfied and a stack of Muddy Waters albums.

Jim Beal Jr., San Antonio Express-News

Gordon strips away many myths about Muddy Waters... The great success of this biography comes from how the writer so skillfully captures the place and feel of Waterss world... Perhaps the greatest compliment that can be given to any biography is that on its pages, you feel like you meet the subject. I saw a handful of Muddy Waterss shows. I leave Cant Be Satisfied feeling like I can smell, touch, and, most important, hear Muddy Waters again.

Charles Cross, Seattle Times

OTHER BOOKS BY R OBERT G ORDON

It Came from Memphis

The King on the Road

This is the earliest known photograph of Muddy Waters, probably taken in Memphis in1942.He is holding his FiskLibrary of Congress78rpm record. Courtesy of the Estate of McKinley Morganfield

This edition first published in Great Britain in 2013 by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EHI ITE

www.canongate.tv

This digital edition first published in 2013 by Canongate Books

Copyright 2002 by Robert Gordon

Foreword copyright 2002 by Keith Richards

Introduction to the Canongate edition copyright 2013 by Robert Gordon

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Originally published in hardcover in 2002 by Little, Brown and Company,
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

The author is grateful for permission to reprint the following: I Bes Troubled, aka I Cant Be Satisfied copyright 1959, 1987; Country Blues, aka Feel Like Going Home copyright 1964, 1992; Train Fare Home, aka Train Fare Blues copyright 1967, 1995; Rollin & Tumblin copyright 1960, 1988; Rollin Stone, aka Catfish Blues copyright 1959, 1987. All written by McKinley Morganfield, pka Muddy Waters. WATERTOONS MUSIC (BMI) / Administered by BUG. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Mannish Boy written by McKinley Morganfield, pka MuddyWaters, E. McDaniel, and Melvin London. Copyright 1955, 1983 WATERTOONS MUSIC (BMI) / Administered by BUG / ARC MUSIC. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Hoochie Coochie Man written by Willie Dixon. Copyright 1957, 1964 (renewed) HOOCHIE COOCHIE MUSIC (BMI) / Administered by BUG. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Mannish Boy (Elias McDaniel, Mel London, McKinley Morganfield) copyright 1955 (renewed) by Arc Music Corporation, Lonmel Publishing, and Watertoons Music. All rights reserved. Used by permission. International copyright secured. Cotton Crop Blues (James Cotton) copyright 1954 (renewed) 1982 by Hi-Lo Music, BMI. All rights reserved. Used by permission. International copyright secured.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 85786 869 5
eISBN 978 0 85786 870 1

Book design by Fearn Cutler de Vicq

For my children

Lila Miriam and Esther Rose

For my parents

Alvin and Elaine

For my old friend

Peter Guralnick

For my new friend

Amelia Cooper

They said it was no accident of circumstance that a man be born in a certain country and not some other and they said that the weathers and seasons that form a land form also the inner fortunes of men...

Cormac McCarthy

All the Pretty Horses

T heres a demon in me. I think theres a demon in everyone, a dark piece in us all. And the blues is a recognition of that and the ability to express it and make fun out of it, have joy out of that dark stuff. When you listen to Muddy Waters, you can hear all of the angst and all of the power and all of the hardship that made that man. But Muddy let it out through music, set the feelings loose in the air. The blues makes me feel better.