(1915 – 1983) Electric bluesman, born on a sharecropping farm in Mississippi, who garnered his nickname from playing as a child in a local creek. Waters was discovered in 1940 by folk-song archivists Alan Lomax and John Work. In 1943 Waters moved to Chicago, IL where he took up electric guitar and his countrified urban blues became a staple of the South Side club circuit and, in the 1950s, the Chess label. Touring constantly and appearing at every major blues, jazz and folk festival, Waters was a key influence on the British bands of the 1960s blues revival.