Muddy: The Story of Blues Legend Muddy Waters

Featuring surreal abstract elements, bright neon colors, and lifelike browns, oranges, and swirls of green and blue combined with photo and newspaper imagery—all backed by a bluesy soundtrack—this is an iconographic-animated adaptation of the 2017 New York Times Best Illustrated Book and NPR Best Book of the Year by author Michael Mahin and illustrator Evan Turk. Earnestly narrated by Damany Jackson, the story covers the life of blues musician McKinley Morganfield (1915-83)—aka Muddy Waters—from his Mississippi upbringing with Grandma Della (who introduced him to church music but still enjoyed his version of "fish fry music" on makeshift instruments), to his balancing of guitar practice and playing jukejoints with working the fields in sharecropping, to his key move to Chicago. Also looking at Waters’s struggle to get his records made the way he wanted, Muddy charts its subject’s rise to glory after people realized his genius (including superfans the Beatles), while also exploring how the Great Migration and Southern racism ultimately led not only to the Chicago blues movement but also inspired the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. Also featuring a read-along option, this fine tribute to an American blues legend is highly recommended. Aud: E, I, P. (J. Williams-Wood)