Can't Be Satisfied

by Robert Gordon

  One night Dixon came to Muddy’s Zanzibar gig. The band was drinking and working up the audience, until the heat and sweat was too much, the cigarette smoke too thick, and they needed a break. Women and fans always surrounded Muddy after each set, and he greeted them politely, though his eye was on making his way to the bathroom. Dixon saw him enter and followed him in. “I was in the men’s house when Willie Dixon came in and said he had a song he wanted me to look at,” recalled Muddy. Dixon’s reputation was established among Chicago’s blues musicians, and Muddy knew he’d recently got tight with the Chess brothers. Dixon ran down the song’s lyrics; if he had them on paper, they did Muddy no good. Muddy liked what he heard. (One commercial aspect of the song was that it had a chorus; many of Muddy’s tunes, even hits such as “Long Distance Call,” were built on a feeling and did not even have a refrain.) “He got his guitar,” said Dixon, “we was standing up in there playing and practicing.” Willie Dixon was a behemoth of a man, over six feet tall and topping three hundred pounds. It was hard to find a space he didn’t crowd, the cramped quarters of the Zanzibar men’s room no exception. One imagines Muddy leaning against the hand sink, his feet beneath Dixon’s girth, his head back against the mirror; Dixon, for whom this moment is initially more important — he’s doing the pitching — with his head at an odd angle around the hand towel dispenser, pressing back his weight to give Muddy’s guitar room. He told Muddy, “Well, just get a little rhythm pattern y’ know. You can do the same thing over again, and keep the words in your mind.” Muddy reached back to “Mad Love” (still selling rapidly) and reworked the stop-time rhythm. It fit.

  Suddenly the noise in the Zanzibar seemed to die away, the stench of old beer and gin-soaked floorboards dissipated, the smoke dispersed. Muddy’s only concern was to gather the band and hit the stage before he forgot the lyrics. He told Dixon he was going to open the set with it. Muddy gave the band the key, played them the pattern. Repeat it, here’s where it changes, listen at me — they knew how to back him. After several rounds of exchange, they fell in together. “Oh man, the people went crazy,” said Muddy. Dixon remembered, “He done it two or three times that night.” Like his grandaddy with an ox and whip, Muddy could bring a song down.

  Lyrically, “Hoochie Coochie Man” was perfectly suited to the stop-time rhythm. The first pause follows quickly on the song’s opening notes, a tease for the listener — what was that? And when it happens again, it’s like a game, the band messing with the audience. Walter’s playing may be his most saxophone-like ever. Muddy Waters sings sex and seduction, boasting and braying, preening like a peacock, voodoo imagery enhancing his masculine power:

  I got a black cat bone

  I got a mojo too

  I got a John the Conquerer root

  I got to mess with you

  I’m gonna make you girls

  Lead me by my hand

  Then the world’ll know

  I’m the Hoochie Coochie Man

  The club’s reaction was only the first indication of the song’s potential. Billboard couldn’t keep quiet about it: “We’re so happy with Muddy Waters on Chess 1560 doing ‘Hoochy Coochy [sic] Man’ that we can’t help mention it again for a top spot. Action gets better every week.” Leonard went south to bolster sales, and Phil told the magazine that the record had sold an astounding four thousand copies in a single week. It became Muddy’s top-selling single and spent three months in the national charts, where it rose to number three.

  The success of “Hoochie Coochie Man” affirmed what each previous single had hinted at and what the steady gigging was trying to make plain: Muddy’s music had become his career. He was ready to buy a house and went to Leonard for advice. Marshall Chess, Leonard’s son, remembers the meeting. “I was out in the yard and this big car pulled up. The guy walks out and he had on this chartreuse green, bright, bright green suit. I looked down and his shoes were made of cow skin, the fur was on them, black and white and brown. And I looked up and he had one of those five-inch hat brims. I was young enough that I didn’t know this was a blues artist, it could have been a spaceship landed. He got out, totally secure, walked over to me, looked down, and said, ‘You must be Chess’s son. Is your daddy home?’ They sat at the kitchen table talking, drinking coffee. Muddy would come to him for advice, but we didn’t have many artists come to the house. My father was never there. He was a workaholic. He took me on the road with him when I was ten because he wanted to be with me, but the only way was to go to work.”

  After the discussion, Leonard sent Mud to his personal lawyer. With Geneva and her two kids, Muddy moved up the social ladder from the West Side to the South Side, settling in for a twenty-year stay at 4339 South Lake Park. Little Walter, Jimmy Rogers, and Otis Spann helped them move furniture. (“I represented Muddy when he bought his home on the South Side,” said attorney Nate Notkin. “I said, ‘Muddy, you want this to be in joint tenancy with your wife?’ I explained what that meant, and he said, ‘You might as well put her on but you know, she’s my common law wife.’ Well, there hasn’t been common law in Illinois since 1920.”)

  The West Side, according to one Chicago aphorism, is the South Side’s basement. The West Side was managed by absentee aldermen; those who had the power to bring improvements were not around to even know what was needed. The South Side was controlled by its own. The South Side was the headquarters for Congressman William Dawson, the New Deal Democrat who’d been serving in Washington since 1942, at one time the sole black face in Congress. He controlled three of Chicago’s fifty wards, accumulating two more as the city’s black population expanded; his machine made blacks an essential cog in Chicago’s political machine. He arranged a line of credit for the Chicago Defender, controlled the NAACP, evicted white organized crime from the South Side so blacks could run it, and then represented these policy kings in his legal practice. He was tight with Chicago’s leading black ministers. He walked the South Side on a wooden leg, and what he surveyed was his.

  Across town, another power was rising: six years after becoming the Cook County clerk, Richard Daley would, in 1956, become mayor of Chicago. Daley envisioned a political machine embraced by a cross section of Chicago’s constituents, and he addressed the black population’s housing squeeze early on, establishing tens of thousands of low-income housing opportunities, each with a majestic beginning — the Henry Horner Homes, Stateway Gardens, Cabrini-Green, the Robert Taylor Homes — but deteriorating quickly, as control was wrested from the city by local gangs. In addition to the resulting territorial fights, black expansion south was still being fought by whites who, despite the Supreme Court’s mandating integration in February of 1954, could not imagine an integrated neighborhood; the National Guard had recently been called to quell a riot over housing. Nonetheless, this was a move toward possibilities, toward promise and enterprise.

  “On the West Side,” said Muddy’s stepson Charles, “we was living in a two-bedroom apartment. We had a commode, and we had to wash our face and hands in a little small pan. But after ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ we accumulated enough money and paid down on this building here. Hell yeah, hell yeah, Leonard Chess would come to this house and eat!”

  Muddy’s house on South Lake Park was built at the turn of the century, when the flourish and detail of the Victorian era had passed, but the era of cookie-cutter homes was yet to come. A large picture window filled the spacious, paneled living room with afternoon light — and heat; the blinds stayed drawn till evening, when the air cooled and a light breeze cracked the heaviness. He had a sizable dining room, separate bedrooms for stepsons Charles and Dennis, and a big kitchen where he and Geneva could cook. Muddy, accustomed to a sideline, quickly installed tenants upstairs and in the basement, adding three more kitchen areas. Otis Spann claimed the basement’s front room, Bo took the middle room, and Muddy put his uncle from Stovall, Joe Grant, in the back of the basement. The band rehearsed in the basement’s common room. Band members and a valet rented the upstairs apartments.
r />   Several people could comfortably gather on the front stoop, and with a crowd spilling down the steps, maybe a chair or two at the bottom, there was room enough for two poker tables of people to gather, jive, and talk trash. A wino in the neighborhood went up and down the streets with a cat on a leash and a recorder in his pocket, stepping around the tamale, watermelon, and Sno-Kone vendors. He’d have a trail of kids behind him, Muddy would see him, say, “Hit it,” and he’d blow a work song that sent the kids dancing. There was a patio in the backyard, and Muddy put two wrought-iron flamingoes on his front door, his name inverted beneath: Waters Muddy. He was confirmed middle class.

  His new home was just blocks from where the new Chess offices were about to be established, South Cottage Grove at Forty-seventh. Muddy could easily stop in to see Leonard, shake hands with him — and shake him down for some of his own money. “My old man would go there almost every day to talk to Leonard,” said Charles, “and I used to come with him. He’d drive here, he wasn’t the walking type, hell no.” He’d done his walking in Mississippi.

  Muddy asked Geneva to quit her factory job. As Charles told it, “My old man said, ‘I don’t want you to work no more.’ She was a damn good cook. He used to tell people that if it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t have been the same man, because he was real young and wild. That old saying, it takes a good woman behind a successful man.” Even Muddy’s stepson reaped the benefits. “A lot of kids knew who my father was, singing blues,” said Charles, “and they kind of put me on a pedestal.” Not coincidentally, Muddy’s move brought Leola Spain south; her child with Muddy, Azelene, was almost twenty. “He really, really respected my grandmother,” Cookie said. “He often would ask her her opinion, and as he got financially stable, he would buy her groceries or send money, do extra things for the grandkids.”

  One of Muddy’s first guests in the home was Howlin’ Wolf, who had continued to have hits with Chess and finally left the Memphis area for Chicago in early 1954. Proud, he drove his own car north. He’d intended to stay in a hotel until he found his way around, but Muddy, happy to help a friend of Leonard’s, insisted he stay with him. Staying with Muddy would have impressed Wolf, even if Muddy weren’t in his new home. Wolf hadn’t begun to record until he was forty, in 1951, well after Muddy was established in the blues world. One of the early tracks he’d cut was a version of Muddy’s “Streamline Woman.” Muddy brought Wolf to the Zanzibar, to Silvio’s, the 708 Club; Leonard was family, so introducing Wolf was a family favor. Soon, wherever Muddy had a night (which was almost every night), Wolf had another one. He was quickly as popular in Chicago as established local stars such as Willie Mabon and Elmore James.

  “I had Chicago sewed up in my hand, it didn’t bother me,” said Muddy. But Wolf was the jealous type, not sharing his spotlight with his sidemen, not letting his sidemen associate with Muddy’s band. Though Muddy and Wolf sometimes downplayed it — Muddy more often than Wolf — genuine dissension existed between them. Wolf soon made his home on the West Side, and their conflict somewhat mirrored the undercurrent of jealousy between the two neighborhoods. The jealousy fueled a rivalry; one time, each proving his fame, Muddy and Wolf began burning money, seeing who would stop lighting bills first. “I know the peoples thought we hated one another,” Muddy recalled, “but we didn’t. But Wolf wanted to be the best and I wasn’t gonna let him come up here and take over the best.”

  Evidence of their conflict, perhaps even its source, was found in the minutes of a meeting from Chicago’s African American branch of the American Federation of Musicians. Howlin’ Wolf filed a grievance against Muddy in early 1955, claiming Muddy, who was booked regularly at Silvio’s, had subcontracted Wolf to cover for him while he went on the road in April. Having accepted, Wolf turned down two offers for gigs. When he found that Silvio’s had someone else booked for April, Wolf went to the union claiming Muddy should pay him for the gigs he was going to miss. Muddy told the union board that his contract with Silvio had expired so he’d have had no reason to subcontract. Mr. Silvio Corroza was called to testify, and he supported Muddy’s account; the board found in Muddy’s favor.

  Tension between the stars stayed high, and Willie Dixon found himself caught between the two of them, each suspecting that Dixon was giving his better material to the other. To entice them, he would sometimes introduce a song to one by saying he’d written it for the other. “I’d say this is a song for Muddy if I wanted Wolf to do it. He would be glad to get in on it by him thinking it was somebody else’s, especially Muddy’s.”

  In March, both “Hoochie Coochie Man” and Little Walter’s “You’re So Fine” were national top sellers. While the success was on them, Muddy and the crew stepped up the pace of recording. On a Tuesday in April, Muddy and the recording band — Jimmy, Walter, Spann, Below, and Dixon — cut “Just Make Love to Me” (also known by its refrain, “I Just Want to Make Love to You”), which entered the top five on the national charts. It was his third record on the charts in half a year, the ninth of his career.

  Muddy was at the height of his powers. His music harnessed the potency, the virility, in the blues. His lyrics did not flinch in their openness about sex. His braggadocio was salacious and uninhibited. This was not the image of America that Eisenhower’s White House nor television’s I Love Lucy suggested. The boldness of his delivery and the lyrics to his songs disquieted the establishment, frightened them. The blues were considered obscene, making Muddy the boogieman incarnate.

  Rolling with success, Leonard moved the Chess offices a block and a half north, into a former automobile garage behind a stationery store at 4750 South Cottage Grove. There was space enough for administrative offices, warehousing and shipping, and a recording studio that doubled as rehearsal space. The sonic fidelity at the new place, however, was not as high as at Universal; the early sides recorded there are thinner, with less bottom. Sales, however, were unaffected. As a gesture of his appreciation to Muddy, Leonard presented him with a new car, a 1954 Oldsmobile 98. It was yellow and green, to match his outfits.

  Like his furnish on the plantation, Muddy’s labor actually paid for this car and for all the future “gifts” and cars. At the time, he was probably unaware he’d bought the car himself, but in later years he’d know. And even then he didn’t stop taking them. “Chess would get him a car every two years,” said Jimmy. “Chess would take it off his royalties. Wolf wouldn’t do that. Wolf would get his own car.” Wolf wanted to see the money, but Muddy embraced the sense of mutual dependence engendered by the gift, even if it was false; it felt like he had some kind of power or protection at the company.

  Muddy promptly had opportunity to test his new ride. He was booked that month in Newark, New Jersey, for Alan Freed’s first big East Coast Moondog Coronation Ball. Muddy shared the bill with, among others, the Clovers, a vocal group, and Sam Butera’s jumping swing combo. Billboard stated, “Most of the attendees at the Newark clambake were youngsters from fifteen to twenty, and about twenty percent of the crowd was made up of white youngsters.” The mixed audience was Muddy’s first hint that he could reach a whole new record-buying public.

  In June of 1954, Muddy was the subject of a two-page spread in the national glossy magazine Hue. Directed at an African American audience, the short article emphasized Muddy’s sex appeal, creating the nickname “Dreamy Eyes” for him. He was a star.

  The night before “I Just Want to Make Love to You” debuted on the national charts — where it would stay all summer and into the fall — Muddy was playing the Zanzibar. About to leave for another tour, including a show before 30,000 people at another Alan Freed concert in Cleveland, Muddy was breaking in harmonica player Henry Strong, known to everyone as “Pot” because of his fondness for reefer. The band’s music was locking together in intimate and complex ways. Muddy played the bottleneck slide less frequently; often, he’d set his guitar aside and just sing, working the stage like a star, growling into the mike, shaking and rolling his head to create different vocal so
unds, breaking into a nimble dance or thrusting his hips with the beat, evoking squeals of delight from the ladies in the house.

  As if to commemorate their success, the band paused during the evening to pose for a photograph. Jimmy and Muddy bookend the group, supporting it since its start. Muddy is playing a Les Paul Standard, a solid body guitar he’d recently purchased. Its tone is dense, prototypically electric. Jimmy is playing a Gibson L-5, a hollow body with a woodier, more natural sound. Spann is seated in the center, the new foundation; he plays an upright piano. Pot is on harmonica, twenty-five years old, seated in front, greeting his burgeoning career. A sign painter, Henry Armstrong, who helped the band make posters in return for being allowed to sit in at gigs, was there on maracas, trolling for the band’s leftover women. Elgin, still playing on gigs even if he’d lost his studio spot, stands at the rear, a distance between him and the group. They’re all wearing suits, long neckties, with neatly combed, close-cropped hair. The world may not be theirs, but this club is, this one and every one on the big road that lies open before them.

  After the gig, Jimmy gave Pot a ride home. Pot lived in an apartment building about two blocks from Muddy’s house, at 4554 South Greenwood, run by Leonard’s father. Leonard could arrange digs there, and he’d helped Pot get a place, like he’d helped Wolf get a transitional place there, and Wolf’s guitarists Jody Williams and Hubert Sumlin, and a girlfriend of Muddy’s whom Muddy was visiting after that night’s gig. “So I got him home,” said Jimmy Rogers. “Muddy was in the building. He wasn’t living there but he was there. Muddy say he heard the rumbling going on. He heard somebody call, ‘Muddy!’ He went to the door, looked out, Pot was in the lobby on the marble floor. He was bleeding like hell, didn’t have no shirt on. Muddy got a quilt and wrapped him up in it and carried him out there and put him in his car. Didn’t have time to wait for no ambulance to come and get him.” Juanita, Pot’s wife, had been in the club that night, mad too, because she’d seen Pot speaking with his other woman. Muddy wheeled to the hospital, but Pot was graveyard dead before they arrived. Juanita’s knife had penetrated his lungs. He was still wearing his gig pants.