“Country Boy”

“Don’t say I don’t love you because I won’t never
treat you right You know I’m a country boy
I just love to
stay out all night”
—Muddy Waters


“At night,”
Muddy Waters says, “in the country,
you’d be surprised
how that music carries. The sound be empty
out there. You could hear my guitar way before
you get to the house,
& you could hear the peoples hollerin’ & screamin’.

“The peoples lived
scattered way apart,”
Muddy remembers. “Our little house
was way back
in the country. We had one house close to us, & then the next one
would’ve been a mile. If you got sick, you could holler
& wouldn’t nobody hear you.

We had our own horses,
mules, cows, goats, & chickens, & I watered ’em
from the time I was a kid. Had to pump the water, & that pump would put
blisters in my hand. Even for one cow,
you gotta pump a lotta water. She’d take two draws out of one of those big tubs,
swallow twice,
& that’d be it. When I got big enough
to crawl around, I would play in the mud & try to eat it. My grandma
started that Muddy thing,
& after we were up there near Clarksdale, the kids started the Waters.

“When I was around 3 years old,
I was already beatin’ on bucket tops & tin cans. Anything with a sound
I would try to play it. I’d take my stick & beat on the ground
tryin’ to get a new sound
& be hummin’
my little baby song
along with it. My first instrument,
which a lady give me,
was an old squeeze box,
old accordian. I must’ve been

I never did learn to play
anything on it, & one of the older boys pulled it apart. The next thing
I had in my hand
was a jew’s harp. I learned pretty good on that thing, & then
when I was about 7, I started playing
with what they called
the French harp at home,
the harmonica. That’s when they started in with the Waters,
& that was even
what my family started to call me: ‘Go on, ol’ Muddy Waters.’ I didn’t
like that. It made me mad, but that’s the way it goes on me, you know.

“Now when I was 9,
I was gettin’ a sound out of the French harp.
When I was 13, I was very, very good. I was playin’ it with my friend Scott
at fish fries, picnics, & things. I should have never
given it up! But then
when I was 17,
I put the harp down
& switched to the guitar.

The first one I got,
I sold the last horse we had. Made about 15 dollars for him,
gave my grandmother
7 dollars & 50 cents. I kept $7.50 & paid about
$2.50 for that guitar.
It was a Stella. The peoples ordered them from Sears & Roebuck
in Chicago. I got about
3 guitars from Sears & Roebuck
before I came up this way. But it was so long
before I even made a dollar! Coming up through my childhood life,
I tried to stay with the music,
but we didn’t get no pay for it— 50 cents, 75 cents. You couldn’t stay there with it
if you ain’t got it deep down
in your soul.”

Asked about church,
Muddy says: “Can’t you hear it
in my voice? I’d go every Sunday.
Plenty of people
would stay up all night & listen to the blues
& go home,
get all ready,
& go to church. Back then
there was just 3 things I wanted to be—
a heck of a preacher,
a heck of a ball player,
or a heck of a musician. I always felt like I could beat plowin’ mules,
choppin’ cotton,
& drawin’ water. I did all that, & I never did like
none of it. Sometimes
they’d want us to work Saturday, but they’d look for me,
& I’d be gone,
playin’ in some little town or in some juke joint.

“I had bad schooling,” Muddy says, “went to about the 2nd
or 3rd grade,
& what I learned to do,
I was doing that
really wrong.” About his unique
sense of time,
Muddy says: “I’m a
delay singer. I don’t sing
on the beat. I sing
behind it, & people have to delay
to play with me. They got to hang around,
wait,
see what’s gonna happen next.

“My blues sounds so simple,” Muddy concludes,
“so easy to do,
but it’s not. They say my blues is the hardest blues
in the world to play.”

—New Orleans December 12, 1995