William “Big Bill” Morganfield was born on June 19th, 1956 in Chicago, Illinois. Raised solely by his grandmother, he moved to south Florida early in his life. His father, McKinley Morganfield is better known as Muddy Waters, the Father of modern Chicago blues. Despite his father’s fame and talent, Big Bill Morganfield had little contact with him throughout his life, and built up his impressive career on his own. “Big Bill” Morganfield did not start his personal career until after receiving two bachelor degrees in English and Communications and becoming a teacher. After his father passed away in 1983, he began to take music seriously, refocusing his life on these goals. Still maintaining a career as a teacher, he spent several years focusing on the craft of blues guitar and then made a strong professional debut in 1996 with his group The Stone Cold Blues Band.

Big Bill Morganfield continues to forge his own sound with a delicate balancing act on this, his forth album. He pays tribute to his dad and the Chicago sound he helped create on the title track, but he has a jazzy side that keeps moving the blues in a more sophisticated direction as well. Al Duncan's "Too Late Brother" opens things with a juke-joint rocker in the style of Morganfield's dad, with Steve Guyger's harp tossing some fat on the fire. "High Gas Prices," a Morganfield original, gives the country blues an urban edge with a tune too many sang in the waning months of 2009. Morganfield sings Pearl Woods' "I Play Dirty" with a winning combination of humor and aggression, with Clark Stern's organ giving the tune a sanctified feel. "Who's the Fool," another original, is a shuffle on the familiar subject of a faithless woman, and Morganfield growls out the lyric with plenty of panache. What really distinguishes Morganfield from his dad is his way with love songs. Muddy always sounded dangerous, even when he was proclaiming his passion. Big Bill's voice is smoother and more mellow, and when he sings a soulful tune like Buddy Guy's neo-R&B ballad "My Love Is Real," his voice has a seductive power his dad lacked.

On his third album, Big Bill Morganfield - yeah, mm-hmmm, he is Muddy's boy - turns in a stylish set of originals and one cover of his daddy's ("Evil") that should have been left off and should have never been recorded after Howlin' Wolf's version. But that's just a personal preference. Big Bill knows how to do the Chicago blues rave up. He keeps the tempered delivery of a song until it smolders with quiet intensity before exploding in the bridge. It may be formula, but he does it so well it doesn't feel that way. Morganfield also knows how to actually "write" a Chicago blues song. He understands that topics are not the only concerns of a modern blues tome; his sense of dynamics and his use of the instruments in complete balance with one another until an assigned moment make him different than his peers…

Big Bill Morganfield, son of the legendary Muddy Waters, makes his recording debut accompanied by Pinetop Perkins, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, Bob Margolin, and Paul Oscher, all former members of the influential Muddy Waters Blues Band. These renowned musicians help pass the torch that burned so brightly inthe hands of the father on to the sun.