Muddy Waters: The rocker who endures through every generation
While predicting which acts from the new music vanguard will have an enduring legacy that survives into the next generation is an inherently fun discussion to involve yourself in, it’s almost impossible to know just how relevant things will be to people who haven’t even been born yet.
The world changes far too quickly these days for it to even be remotely measurable as to who will stand the test of time and be regarded as the most significant act of the current generation, and while there are definite candidates in the running to have their names immortalised in rock and roll history, trends, values and collective thought always has the propensity to shift in or out of favour of those currently at the top of their game.
The likes of Geese and Fontaines DC may be popular now, but who’s to say that my children will be fans of them in the same way that I’m a fan of Pixies and Nirvana, both of whom had ceased to exist before my life began. Their careers could end tomorrow, and we wouldn’t know for another 20 years or so whether they still hold any stock in the future, should we even have one on this Earth.
To be enduring, your music arguably has to be easy to understand and function on even the most rudimentary level, and it has to be able to exist regardless of time or context. There are many who have managed to capture this essence and are therefore still beloved several generations on, but there’s arguably one area where the greats have survived multiple cultural shifts and are still put on a pedestal for their achievements in decades long past.
You can’t go much more back to basics than the blues, and that’s why artists of this ilk are still talked about as being the forefathers of rock and roll. As someone who was heavily influenced by this style, yet emerged a reasonable amount of time after its heyday, Billy Gibbons commented about how ZZ Top were constantly inspired by the longevity of Muddy Waters in a 2009 interview with Classic Rock, proclaiming that he is perhaps the most enduring of all.
Gibbons was fortunate enough to form a relationship with Waters towards the end of his life, touring with him in 1983 and befriending him on the basis that they shared a lot of the same musical DNA.
“I actually first met him back in 1976,” Gibbons pondered, “Dusty Hill’s brother, Rocky, was a shining light in chasing down these blues masters and bringing a significant amount of attention to them, and he introduced us back then. We were interpreters, they were the inventors. But Muddy, well, he was just something else, man.”
He then went on to say that in the contemporary world, there are still a handful of artists like Jack White and The Black Keys who operate in a similar manner to Waters, and while the list isn’t as long as it was at the height of ZZ Top’s popularity, he was still hopeful that people would continue to be inspired by the greats from the earliest years. “We’re still listening to stuff that came out between, say, 1949 to 1957, people like Muddy Waters,” he added, “It’s the stuff that I keep on going back to. It’s very enduring”.
You can’t really argue with Waters’ importance, and the groundwork that he laid out as a foundation for what rock would become can still be felt. He was an innovator, but made his innovations easy to understand, and that’s ultimately the perfect recipe for making your legacy last far beyond your lifetime.
