Interview: Mud Morganfield

‘Anyone who writes for The House That Soul Built can talk to me,’ says Mr Mud Morganfield (AKA Muddy Waters Jr) when I tell him the name of this website. The man radiates positivity from the start of our conversation. I ask him how he is. ‘I’m doing as well as can be. Everything is where it should be, that’s how I look at life.’

Currently in his hometown of Chicago where he resides, Mr Morganfield will be performing at the London Blues Week in January 2019 at the prestigious 100 Club. ‘I’ll be coming man with the blues and some of the baddest cats man.’ He mentions his top-notch band, a team who ‘eat the blues, drink the blues, and sleep it.’ Even before I get to my prepared ‘UK vs US’ question, he jumps in: ‘You can tell England that I love them man. If it wasn’t for you guys my career wouldn’t be where it’s at right now.’

I push him more for his thoughts on the difference between British and American audiences. ‘Well I would tell you that but I don’t want to put my foot in my mouth.’ I push further. ‘Don’t make me put my foot in my mouth, because I live here [in Chicago],’ he laughs. ‘But I’ll tell you man, the UK, and I’ve toured in a lot of countries man, are more in tune to blues than the US y’know. In the US you got a lot of rap stars coming up and you have a lot of rock-blues such as Joe Bonamassa… But the UK love the blues man. And they are so respectful… I think you could sound like crap in the UK, and you guys would still cheer a person on. Now how can you beat that?’

Of course, Morganfield’s father – blues legend Muddy Waters – pops up into our discussion. Morganfield accepts the inevitability of comparisons drawn between father and son, and he even embraces them. He admits that ‘being the son of any famous person, it’s always a double-edged sword,’ but does not deny his ability to channel his father’s craft. ‘I think people who only heard Muddy Waters and didn’t really get a chance to see him perform… I think I give them a glimpse of what it was like if dad was still with us.’

But he has his own style, influenced by his upbringing. Earlier this year he released an album, They Call Me Mud, with discernible traits of the soul and Motown music which he grew up on. ‘I didn’t grow up in the south… I never picked cotton… I grew up in Chicago… and it was still pretty rough times in the ‘50s and ‘60s, but that’s the era I grew up in and that’s what I heard over the radio and the television – The Temptations, the Four Tops etc. As a young person, we identified with what’s in our ears all the time.’ Morganfield makes it clear that he doesn’t shy away from his other influences. ‘I can’t close my mind to music,’ he says, ‘so if you hear jazz in there, or a little funk, if you hear rhythm and blues, if you hear some soul… It’s just who I am.’

Moreover, Morganfield could not be more confident in the utter timelessness of the blues genre. He mentions his fondness for contemporary artists flying the flag for blues such as Jerron ‘Blind Boy’ Paxton, and Marquise Knox – describing the latter as his ‘inspiration that the blues still ‘gon be around for a while.’ I ask him if the blues has the same relevance today as when his father was at the height of his career. ‘If you’re an alcoholic or a drug addict or have HIV or have cancer, I think so. Because that’s enough to give anyone the dark blues.’

‘Blues always ‘gon be here. Anytime you have people suffering, and people are gonna suffer, you’re gonna have the blues man.’ Never has anyone said something so dark and gloomy with such casual charm.