Quotes About Muddy Waters

#1. My own musical background is based in the blues, and in classical composition. I grew up listening to Muddy Waters, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Beethoven and Bach.

Frederick Lenz

#2. There had to be the dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background its flashing glory.

Betty Smith

#3. All the really great records or people who made them somehow came from Memphis or Louisiana or somewhere along the Mississippi River ... And singers like Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters gave me the feeling that they were right there, standing by the river.

John Fogerty

#4. Obscure, like muddy waters.

Laozi

#5. I'd play whenever I could get my hands on an electric guitar; I was trying to pick up rock'n'roll riffs and electric blues-the latest Muddy Waters. I'd spend hours and hours on the same track, back again, and back again.

Keith Richards

#6. All the muddy waters of my life cleared up when I gave myself to Christ.

Mickey Rooney

#7. Muddy Waters, I suppose, was my first great hero. You know, every boy wants to be a guitar player, and Muddy Waters was just the king. He was the King Bee. He was it.

Hugh Laurie

#8. Obscure as muddied water. But, with stillness, muddy waters clear. Can you also act while remaining still?

Lao-Tzu

#9. The hippo of recollection stirred in the muddy waters of the mind.

Terry Pratchett

#10. Who is there who can make muddy waters clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will gradually clear itself.

Laozi

#11. The Missouri is, perhaps, different in appearance and character from all other rivers in the world; there is a terror in its manner which is sensibly felt, the moment we enter its muddy waters from the Mississippi.

George Catlin

#12. Hardly a day goes by without me sticking on a Muddy Waters record.

Rory Gallagher

#13. When I was a kid, we didn't have any blues stations. I never heard Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters or any of those people until the Stones had come along, and I took it upon myself to find out who these people were that they were covering.

Tom Petty

#14. The lotus grows in muddy waters but this flower does not show any trace of it: So we have to live in the world.

B.K.S. Iyengar

#15. I'd like to get something together - like a Handel, Bach, Muddy waters, flamenco type of thing. If I could get that sound, I'd be happy

Jimi Hendrix

#16. Sybil and Nancy leaned over to catch a glimpse of the sun sparkling on the muddy waters of the River Plate. The skyscrapers stood proudly in clumps and Sybil assumed that the patches of green were parks. In no time the plane was screeching to a halt and they had arrived in Buenos Aires.

Phyllis Goodwin

#17. What Muddy Waters did for us is what we should do for others. It's the old thing, what you want written on your tombstone as a musician; HE PASSED IT ON.

Keith Richards

#18. I've always wanted the sound of Muddy Waters' early records - only louder

Eric Clapton

#19. I saw an interview with Keith Richards. He said, 'How else could a kid in Dartford suddenly connect with and understand what Muddy Waters is singing?' There's a cultural difference, but there's just something in that music that subconsciously or internally you just understand; it just makes sense.

Paul Weller

#20. Anyone who brings up gender in the workplace is wading into deep and muddy waters. The subject itself presents a paradox, forcing us to acknowledge differences while trying to achieve the goal of being treated the same.

Sheryl Sandberg

#21. You had to go to a different part of town from where I was to get Muddy Waters singles. I had him on singles.

Warren Zevon

#22. Muddy Waters he play in the river Joan Rivers she play in the mud Swami guru play in a big salad bowl Counting lettuce and chewing his cud

Tom Robbins

#23. So I went out and bought Hard Again by Muddy Waters. That was a big learning curve. I listened to that album again and again and again. James Cotton was the harmonica player on that album.

Sonny Terry

#24. At the Muddy Waters thing, I played the first song by myself on an acoustic guitar. I thought that was great that y'all did that tribute to Muddy Waters. I had a real good time.

Gregg Allman

#25. Lightnin' Hopkins taught us, "the rubber on a wheel is faster than the rubber on a heel" and Muddy Waters taught us "you don't have to be the best one; just be a good 'un" .. that just about says it all, always strive to be a good 'un ...

Billy F. Gibbons

#26. My favorite country blues player was Big Bill Broonzy. City blues was Freddie King, but I liked them all - Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Ralph Willis, Lonnie Johnson, Brownie McGhee and the three Kings, B.B., Albert and Freddie. Jazz-wise, I listened to Django, Barney Kessel and Wes Montgomery.

Alvin Lee

#27. A lily does not lose its beauty because it blooms in muddy waters.

Matshona Dhliwayo

#28. For groups like the Rolling Stones names like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf were exotic inspirations. For Siegel-Schwall they were the guys that played with them on 43rd Street.

Lin Brehmer

#29. The first band I identified with from Chicago was the Muddy Waters band.

Eric Clapton

#30. Muddy Waters was, like, the king! He had a lot of adopted sons and daughters. I was just happy to be one of them.

Robert Cray

#31. They just said, 'Roll the tape.' No rehearsal or nothing ... Muddy [Waters] didn't come in and say 'I wanna rehearse.' He used to look at me and say 'Let's just play the blues. That's all you need to do.

Buddy Guy

#32. The workroom radio, tuned to FM 88.9, emitted Muddy Waters's throaty warbling. A rez station, WOJB did its best to hit every level of musical taste. Absolute bite-ya-in-the-ass blues was aired only during the wee hours.

Tracker's favorite time and music.

Mardi Oakley Medawar

#33. That's where my influences lie, in the blues with people like Muddy Waters and Tina Turner. At first I didn't really like the idea of working with synthesizers but now I think they're fun, there are no restrictions. Not that I understand how they work.

Vince Clarke

#34. It made me sick - my name's Keith Richards. It hardly makes it against Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters, does it? On my first guitar I had Boy Blue written - just pathetic. But that was as good as I got at the time.

Keith Richards

#35. I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. In some way, in some form, my God was always there, but now I have learned to talk to him.

Eric Clapton

#36. It was Muddy Waters who took the Delta blues north to Chicago, electrified the sound, and changed the course of popular music as we know it. That's pretty much the judgment of history, and it is mine as well.

Tim Cahill

#37. I was staying with my sister and messing around with the guitar every day for my own amusement. Then she took me around and introduced me to Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, and the first time I saw that onstage, it inspired me to play. I thought that was the world.

Otis Rush

#38. I grew up listening to Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf and lots of blues, R&B and Motown.

L'Wren Scott

#39. James Cotton is a real blues guy, and he played with Muddy Waters, and it surprised me that they would want me to make a record with them, that he called me to do this record. I'd never done anything like that before. But I love blues, so I was very happy.

Charlie Haden

#40. If I sang the way I talk it would sound like "Tommy Steele sings Muddy Waters!"

James Hunter

#41. The best musicians in the world were raised on the same kind of music I was raised on and that is black, soulful, authoritative, ultra-tight, ferocious, uppity, defiant music that from the Howlin' Wolf, the Muddy Waters, the Lightnin' Hopkins, the Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Little Richard.

Ted Nugent

#42. Did Muddy Waters play an acoustic? Well of course he did. But did he turn his back on being able to plug it in and play louder? No, he plugged in and turned it up and got miles and miles ahead of the game in one fateful act of just plugging in.

Billy Gibbons

#43. It's one thing to play a Muddy Waters song. It's another thing to play with him.

Keith Richards

#44. This whole thing about winning and losing is muddy waters. But I can remember, as a young actor, just walking around this city and not being able to get arrested.

Jeffrey Tambor

#45. I got that first record out, it came out in '47 ... Then my name began to ring around. I began to take over. From that point, I tell you, Chicago was in my hand, all the more time that those guys had to listen to me.

Muddy Waters

#46. I stone got crazy when I saw somebody run down them strings with a bottleneck. My eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and I said that I had to learn.

Muddy Waters

#47. Robert Johnson? No, I didn't know him, personally.

Muddy Waters

#48. Memphis was almost like going to California. Beale Street was the black man's street.

Muddy Waters

#49. Oh, I started out young. They handed me a cotton sack when I was about 8 years old. Give me a little small one, tell me to fill it up. I never did like the farm but I was out there with my grandmother, didn't want to get away from around her too far.

Muddy Waters

#50. My grandmother, she say I shouldn't be playing. I should go to church. Fially, I say I'm going do this, I'm going do it. And she got where she didn't bother me about it.

Muddy Waters

#51. Saturday night is your big night. Everybody used to fry up fish and have one hell of a time. Find me playing till sunrise for 50 cents and a sandwich. And be glad of it. And they really liked the low-down blues.

Muddy Waters

#52. Of course that was my idol, Son House. I think he did a lot for the Mississippi slide down there.

Muddy Waters

#53. A person of faith who shares conservative values and who says very clearly that climate change is real - and here's why we have to care about it - I think that we "unicorns" do pose a threat to people who want to muddy the waters and keep others in the dark.

Katharine Hayhoe

#54. I was messing around with the harmonica ... but I was 13 before I got a real good note out of it.

Muddy Waters

#55. I went down to my baby's house and I sit down on her steps. She said, now come on in now, you know, my husband just left.

Muddy Waters

#56. You get a heck of a sound from the church. Can't you hear it in my voice?

Muddy Waters

#57. I was so wild and crazy and dumb in my car. It didn't run but 30 miles an hour. You made do.

Muddy Waters

#58. Man, you don't know how I felt that afternoon when I heard that voice and it was my own voice.

Muddy Waters

#59. I got up one Christmas morning and we didn't have nothing to eat. We didn't have an apple, we didn't have an orange, we didn't have a cake, we didn't have nothing.

Muddy Waters

#60. Find me playing till sunrise for 50 cents and a sandwich.

Muddy Waters

#61. The thing about San Francisco is that it has this kind of magical quality.

Muddy Waters

#62. I wanted to get out of Mississippi in the worst way. Go back? What I want to go back for?

Muddy Waters

#63. Nietzsche lampooned the romantics of his day (a half century later), noting that "they muddy the waters to make them look deep.

Robert Solomon

#64. I rambled all the time. I was just like that, like a rollin' stone.

Muddy Waters

#65. If you got something you don't want other people to know, keep it in your pocket.

Muddy Waters

#66. Now that I'm gettin' old enough to get some money, I'd like to have some money. I don't get much made, I need to conquer a big chunk of money. Not quit playin' but quit playin' so hard.

Muddy Waters

#67. Ain't nobody's business, if I bark like a dog.

Muddy Waters

#68. All the kids made their own git-tars. Made mine out of a box and bit of stick for a neck. Couldn't do much with it, but that's how you learn.

Muddy Waters

#69. The blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll.

Muddy Waters

#70. I wanted to definitely be a musician or a good preacher or a heck of a baseball player. I couldn't play ball too good - I hurt my finger, and I stopped that. I couldn't preach, and well, all I had left was getting into the music thing.

Muddy Waters

#71. China is to stock fraud as Silicon Valley is to technology.

Muddy Waters

#72. Truth is compared in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition.

John Milton

#73. My blues are so simple, but so few people can play it right

Muddy Waters

#74. There's no way in the world I can feel the same blues the way I used to. When I play in Chicago, I'm playing up-to-date, not the blues I was born with. People should hear the pure blues - the blues we used to have when we had no money.

Muddy Waters

#75. Our little house was way back in the country. We had one house close to us, and hell the next one would've been a mile. If you got sick, you could holler and wouldn't nobody hear you.

Muddy Waters

#76. I went to school, but they didn't give you too much schooling because just as soon as you was big enough, you get to working in the fields. I guess I was a big boy for my age.

Muddy Waters

#77. Going to Chicago was like going out of the world ...

Muddy Waters

#78. I was always singing the way I felt, and maybe I didn't exactly know it, but I just didn't like the way things were down there-in Mississippi.

Muddy Waters

#79. At night in the country, you'd be surprised how that music carries. You could hear my guitar way before you get to the house, and you could hear the peoples hollerin' and screamin'.

Muddy Waters

#80. I been in the blues all my life. I'm still delivering 'cause I got a long memory.

Muddy Waters

#81. I got your strand of hair, I kiss it day and night.

Muddy Waters

#82. That Mississippi sound, that Delta sound is in them old records. You can hear it all the way through.

Muddy Waters