Words From Charlie
Charlie Musselwhite On Muddy Waters
7/5/08
...I hope everyone enjoyed their Independence Day...
I wanted to send a few lines before I'm back to the many tasks at hand. In it's final stages, the Charlie Musselwhite interview should be up in a couple of days. There was a part in the interview I thought folks might enjoy on this festive weekend. We were talking about Charlie hanging out at Peppers Lounge in Chicago where he got to know musicians like Muddy Waters, Little Walter and many others. A waitress friend of Charlie's--at Peppers Lounge--told Muddy, "You should hear that boy play harmonica." Muddy Waters always asked Charlie Musselwhite to sit in with him through the years. This excerpt from the interview explains the very first time they shared the stage:
JC: That's amazing...the first time you were on stage was sitting in with Muddy Waters...
CM: I remember thinking it was quite a thrill to be onstage standing next to Muddy Waters playing harmonica. It was like Wow! It wasn't even a dream come true--I never even had this dream. It was just something put on me. The blues overtook me...
Later Charlie explained how Muddy gave a much grittier performance to his black audiences:
CM: Yeah, I think he was in his forties when we met. He'd put on a show. He'd be running around on the stage--I mean it was wild. I've seen him do shows for white audiences and they were really different from his usual show.
JC: He'd tone things down a bit...
CM: Oh yeah. Muddy would do things like, he'd be playing "I'm A Man" and he would step back--James Cotton would come to take the front of the stage taking a solo while Muddy would shake up a beer bottle, put it in his pants, then he'd come back singing "I'm a Man"--un-zip his pants, pull out the beer bottle--pop cap off of it and foam would go all over the audience. Women would be swinging their purses saying, 'Sing it Muddy! Sing It! This isn't the show you'd see at a folk festival...
Well, that's all for now folks. Until tomorrow...
The Charlie Musselwhite Interview
James Calemine
JCalemine@swampland.com
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