Why are B.B. King and Muddy Waters considered blues masters?

Answer 1

Both because of their great voices, ability to adapt to changing styles and hard work ethic. Earl Hooker was described as the laziest guitar player ever. He had enormous talent he let go to waste before dying. Magic Sam had great potential but died too young to have a body of work to compare to Muddy and BB.

Nobody could sing like Muddy Waters, and I don't care how much the SRV fans want to treat the white boys like demigods just because of technical abilities. I have seen all of them perform live, and both BB and Muddy's voices were absolutely spellbinding. Another fact about the two is discovering and encouraging new talent. They were never afraid of being overshadowed by a band member's skills. Same for Albert King, who gave SRV his first real job.

Both BB King and Muddy Waters grew up in the delta of Mississippi, a couple of hours north of me. BB brought a smooth professionalism to his recordings, while Muddy was one of the fathers of the raw electric Chicago blues sound (mainly done by Mississippi transplants, including Howlin' Wolf). A teenage Buddy Guy left Baton Rouge to join them and can be heard in support on many recordings.

There's a lot more, but Muddy and BB deserve every accolade you read. And to listen to them sing shows you why.

Edit: Martin's outflanked me again. :-) I should have written about BB's single note approach, which was not rooted in the Delta at all. The names Martin listed were all huge influences on BB King, as was his cousin Bukka White. BB was trying to imitate Bukka's bottleneck slide style, which is where he came up with the slipping and sliding a few frets. Like much of art, it was created by accident.

Oh, and if anyone is interested in the blues, or new to it and has a friendly question, I would never snidely answer "If you have to ask..." That's like those stupid biker shirts, which say to me "Wearer of this shirt incapable of explaining".

Answer 2

Bb King Blues Master

Answer 3

Muddy Waters

Answer 4

Corrosion has a great answer, as usual damn it :)

I'll add this-
Muddy was a POWERFUL performer. If you never had the chance to see him live, you missed something incredible.
His band was also a spawning ground for many great musicians. His first band alone had Jimmy Rogers, Elgin Evans, Otis Spann & Little Walter.

B.B. King, although from Mississippi, developed a single string guitar style that was influenced by Texas players such as T-Bone Walker and Blind Lemon Jefferson, as well as jazz guitarists Eddie Lang, Django Reinhardt, and Charlie Christian. This mixture of influences resulted in a style of playing that, in turn, made B.B. one of the most influential instrumentalists in the history of the Blues.

P.S. - Note to D.S.
At the risk of coming across as a jerk, your answer has a number of substantial errors. Muddy was first recorded in his own sharecroppers shack on Stovall's plantation in 1941. Baby Please Don't Go is a Big Joe Williams tune that predates Muddy's recording by nearly a decade. B.B. never migrated to Chicago. His first recordings, issued on Modern/RPM were recorded by Sam Phillips at the Memphis recording service, later known worldwide as the Sun Records studio (706 Union ave., Memphis.)

Answer 5

I'm a Rev. Gary Davis fan.

King and Waters are considered masters because of their exceptional body of work and contributions to the field.

And they deserve it. Blues is a big tent enterprise; some are innovators, others popularizers, some just sing the blues; but they're all welcomed under the tent & I'm glad they're all in there.

Answer 6

well, I'll not give a big long explination as some have...

Here's the deal, they are considered masters because they influenced EVERYBODY. Take a listen to The Rolling Stones' early albums, The Beattles early albums, read up on Jimi Hendrix history and how he learned to play guitar.

Answer 7

because they have been at it for a long time and they don,t have many equals they along with very few others are considered legends some of these being sonntboy williamson bessie smith ma rainy lightning hopkins to name a few it shows how good they are/were when if you was asked to compile a list of you,r favourite pop singers you could probably fill 2-3 a4 sheets of paper but in blues and in the begining perhaps a handfull of artists ruled

Answer 8

There are many great blues performers. Waters and King simply lived long enough to produce a HUGE volume of work.

Answer 9

Because they made the blues

Answer 10

Mainly because they ARE! Muddy (McKinley Morganfield) can be heard as early as 1948 doing a field holler verison of "Baby Please Don't Go" and uses "Baltimore" instead of "New Orleans" as the place not to go back to. This on a Library of Congress record of "***** music", collected in Alabama. (He is originally from Mississippi). I believe this must have been the original words to the song, because it rhymes ("go" with "mo'[re]) in Muddy's version. He then moved North to Chicago, and formed his blues band, originally playing acoustic guitar in the early '50's, then playing all electric in the classic blues period of the late '50's. The number of great players who played in his band at some point or other is all but the roll call of great Chicago blues people: James Cotton, Sam Lay, and Willie Dixon are just a few of the obvious ones. He recorded for Chess records, and produced many great classics: I've Got My Mojo Working, I'm Ready, I'm a Man, Sugar Bee, and All Aboard a just a few of many. Many people have covered his band's songs, a lot of which were written by Willie Dixon. To hear Muddy play slide guitar is to become entirely re-eduated in the possibilities of guitar playing. To listen to Muddy Waters' songs is to recapture an era in Black American history before the end of segregation and to peek into a world and culture which has all but vanished. One of the greatest experiences in my life was to stand at the feet of this great player, hear his music live, and then later, while wandering around campus, to see him walking around passing out buttons advertising his new (and nearly last record) and to have him give me one and shake my hand after telling him how much I appreciated his music. He was absolutely down to earth and friendly, not a bit of pretense or "star obsession" to him.
In my view, one of the greatest blues albums of all time is "Fathers and Sons" on which Muddy,

Sam Lay, and Otis Spann team up with Paul Butterfield on harmonica, and Donald "Duck" Dunn and Steve Cropper from Booker T.'s band, the M.G.'s to do a double album (one live, one studio) of Muddy's songs. EVERYBODY plays great without anyone trying to blow anyone else off the stage. The fans on the live album are just ecstatic. Truly worth the cost, and with the cd comes an extra song not found on the vinyl version.

B.B.King came from the same area of Mississippi which Muddy Waters came from, "the Delta", in the northwestern part of the state. He too moved north to Chicago, and soon started playing there. His greatest moment came upon the release of "The Thrill is Gone" and the associated album, "Live at the Regal" in 1970, both of which became big hits. But he was already very well known among blues fans before that. Both "Rock Me Baby" and "Lucille" had been covered by the English invasion group "the Animals" some years before. B.B. King first became noted for being a singer, but his guitar playing, on his famous guitar which he named "Lucille", became widely respected in it's own right. Well known for extensive gigging, he is said to have played as many as 342 gigs a year for many years. Later, in the early 90's, he even played one of his songs with U2 ("When Love Comes to Town") on one of their double albums. He now owns a major club in New York City where groups from all genres come to play. I have heard recently that he has gotten sick. I hope the best for him, as he is one of the last of the original blues masters that we still have left. He has been honored by the President of the United States for his contributions to American Culture.
There were many great musicians and composers down through the long history of the blues, but Muddy Waters and B.B. King could have stayed on stage with anyone, and their influence has, and will, long outlive them.