Muddy Waters?

Question

we all know the famous blues musician, Muddy Waters. We all know that this is not his original name. There is a song by Bessie Smith (God Bless Bessie!!) by the same name....about her "Mississippi Delta home" which is fallacious because she was from Chattanooga...
but anyway, did Muddy Waters (a.k.a. McKinley Morganfield) take his show name directly from Bessie's song? Is there a link between the song and his name? If so please explain.
I'm not too good with dates, would Bessie been a contemporary of Muddy or would she have been before him, thus establishing his use of her song title for the name?

Answer 1

REDMAN the Muddy Waters album!

Answer 2

In 1927 Bessie Smith recorded, Muddy Water ( A Mississippi Man). a song which sentimentalizes the reoccurring Mississippi floods.

In 1918 McKinley Morganfield received the nickname "Muddy Waters"(3 years old) as a result of his grandmother calling him "little muddy baby" because he like to play in dirty water puddles and a muddy creek. "Waters" was added later, thus resulting in the moniker Muddy Waters.

Waters lived from 1915-1983
Smith lived from 1895-1937

While they were contemporaries, there is no evidence that they actually met. It wouldn't make sense that Bessie Smith wrote a song about a twelve year old boy in the Delta.

Waters was unknown until Alan Lomax recorded him in the 1940's and later set off for Chicago.

Answer 3

He was born McKinley Morganfield-Muddy Waters is a nickname given him in childhood-in the tiny hamlet of Rolling Fork, Mississippi, on April 4, 1915, but from the age of three, when his mother died, was raised by his maternal grandmother in Clarksdale, a small town one hundred miles to the north.

http://www.muddywaters.com/bio.html