Muddy waters biography

ByWilliam J. Wright

Born in the fields of the deep South, the blues is a uniquely American art form.

Embodying the struggles of Black Americans in the early 20th century, the blues has evolved from a music of the oppressed to a genre enjoyed across lines of race, wealth, and nationality. In less than a century, blues music traveled from the rural juke joints of the Mississippi Delta all the way to White House.

Muddy waters biography

At a 2012 celebration of the blues titled "In Performance in the White House: Red, White, and Blues," President Barack Obama summed up the importance and continuing appeal of this most American of musical genres. "[T]his music continues to speak to something universal," Obama said.

"No one goes through life without joy and pain, triumph and sorrow. The blues gets all of that, sometimes with just one lyric or just one note."

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Few musicians loom as large in the history and development of the bl