Muddy

July 1, 2017
Mahin traces Muddy Waters' path from his Mississippi Delta roots to legendary status as a Chicago blues giant.McKinley Morganfield, raised by Grandma Della, is nicknamed Muddy for the Mississippi mud he plays in. Even more than church music, he loves the stuff "they didn't play on Sundays"--Delta blues. Muddy soaks up such influences as slide guitarist Son House and plays what instruments he finds or makes. A fieldworker by day, he buys a guitar and plays juke joints at night. Mahin dramatizes Waters' departure for Chicago as a last-straw disagreement with a field boss and uses a refrain--"But Muddy was never good at doing what he was told"--at seminal junctions. Waters responds to Chicago's jazz-infused blues scene not by rejecting Delta blues, but by literally amplifying it: "Muddy plugged in, turned on, turned up, and out came the sound of the Delta, buzzing and mad like an angry hornet's nest." Turk's breathtaking pictures fuse historical newspaper clippings, paint, printer's ink, oil pastels, and china marker. His symbolic palette shifts from sun-seared, white-gold cotton, red earth, and undulating river-blue to Chicago's urbane, neon-lit green, blue, and black. (Muddy retains his Delta-born, underpainted red contours throughout.) Motifs like the purple of Della's dress repeat dynamically. A note on the copyright page states that both lyrics and dialogue are invented. This poetic celebration of Muddy Waters' musical truth is lifted still higher by Turk's extraordinary art. (author's note, suggested books and recordings) (Picture book. 6-10)

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July 1, 2017

K-Gr 3-This picture book biography tells the story of the early life of McKinley Morganfield (1913-83), aka Muddy Waters, an American blues legend. Born in rural Mississippi and raised by his Grandma Della, Waters was interested in music from an early age and improvised his own homemade instruments. He faced opposition throughout, from disapproving family members to sharecropper bosses, but resisted and persevered, as he was "never good at doing what he was told." Eventually Waters moved to Chicago, where he helped develop the unique "Chicago Blues" style, merging the popular jazz of the day with traditional Delta blues from the South. The story is lyrically told with a lilting cadence by debut author Mahin. His descriptions are vivid (the "sound of the delta, buzzing and mad like an angry hornet's nest looking for a fight"), and his explanations of blues music are simple and accessible. Turk's mixed-media illustrations leap off the page. His folk-art images weave together painting with newspaper clipping collages, pastel lines, and ink prints to create a truly recognizable style, rich with color and texture. Music is portrayed in abstract patterns and zigzag lines, and the soul of the blues sings out through the pages. VERDICT A worthy addition to biography collections, shedding light on an important figure in U.S. music history.-Clara Hendricks, Cambridge Public Library, MA

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 7, 2017
Born McKinley Morganfield, the boy who would become guitarist Muddy Waters embraced the blues from an early age, even if the grandmother who raised him didn’t approve: “Last I checked, you can’t eat the blues for breakfast.” Debut author Mahin’s dialogue is invented, but it paints a vivid picture of Waters’s determination to make it as a blues musician, eventually leaving his sharecropping life in Mississippi for Chicago. Like Waters’s music after landing in the Windy City, Turk’s artwork is electric—wild strokes of marker and oil pastel vibrate with energy. And Mahin’s equally vivid writing will almost certainly send readers after Waters’s catalogue: “It felt honest and raw. It felt real. It felt like the past and the future and the country and the city all rolled into one.” Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Minju Chang, Bookstop Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Brenda Bowen, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.

Starred review from July 1, 2017
Grades 2-4 *Starred Review* Blues artist Muddy Waters was never good at doing what he was told. That's the dogged through line that takes a Mississippi boy from the cotton fields to Chicago to playing for a president. What makes him soar, though, is the music. This expansive picture-book biography for slightly older readers introduces a boy raised by his grandmother to keep his head down. But Muddy buys himself an old guitar the first chance he gets, and the sounds that come out are the Delta mixed with the howl that was in his heart. He moves to Chicago, where they want jazz, not blues, until they hear his blues. His record is a smash, and then the world opens up. Muddy stays true to the sounds in his head, even as his music becomes a prequel for rock and roll. Although the essence of the blues is world-weariness, the prose and pictures here mix exuberance with melancholy. Mahin's words have a beat all their own, capturing the lows and highs with poetic verve. Turk's watercolor, ink, and collage artwork fills pages, exploding with a neon intensitythe equivalent of a dynamic guitar riff. An author's note relays that while Mahin has been true to historical facts as much as possible, there is fictionalization, though it's not delineated. Read the book, and then get kids the music.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)