Muddy Waters Birthplace — Rolling Fork, Mississippi

Muddy Waters — McKinley Morganfield — was born on April 4, 1913, in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, in the heart of the Delta. His family moved north to Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale when he was three, and it was on the Stovall Plantation that Alan Lomax recorded him for the Library of Congress in 1941 — the recordings that would eventually lead to his discovery. But Rolling Fork is his birthplace, and the town has acknowledged the honour with a historical marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail.

Muddy Waters's journey from the cotton fields of the Delta to the electric clubs of Chicago's South Side is one of the foundational narratives of American music. He moved to Chicago in 1943, electrified his sound, and created a band whose influence on rock and roll cannot be overstated. His band at various points included Little Walter, Jimmy Rogers, Otis Spann, and Junior Wells; his recordings for Chess Records — 'Rollin' Stone,' 'Hoochie Coochie Man,' 'Mannish Boy,' 'Got My Mojo Working' — are bedrock.

Rolling Fork is a small Delta town in Sharkey County. A Mississippi Blues Trail marker acknowledges Waters's birth here. The town suffered catastrophic tornado damage in March 2023. Visitors to Rolling Fork typically also make the short drive to Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, where the Lomax recordings were made and where Muddy's sharecropper cabin originally stood.