Mississippi born singer-guitarist Muddy Waters was much more than an inuential blues man, he was an artistic epicenter, a rare, luminous astral body around whom it seemed, at certain points, the entire post-war blues galaxy was centered. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Muddy represented the celestial pole of the blues_x001A_ very center, a point of connection between the music_x001A_s symbolic heaven and earth, one through which owed a surging force so powerful it not only affected how musicians performed, it reached into the very social-cultural fabric of the nation, and eventually the world. Bound together by a rare symmetry of creative elements, he also ultimately represents a uniting force that, through his pervasive inuence on rock & roll_x001A_s practitioners, brought black and white together at time of profound division. Muddy Waters changed everything. He proposed a modern blues reality so tangibly potent and loaded with soul deep appeal that it was like a portal to undreamed of realm, and all who entered therein were made a gift of Muddy_x001A_s singular philosophical rhythms and truth. As a ringmaster for rock & roll_x001A_ a Godfather who not only facilitated but also participated by leading Chuck Berry to the recording studio, inspiring and touring with the Rolling Stones_x001A_he is completely unique all over again.