The Lomax Stovall Recordings

In 1941 Alan Lomax arrived at Stovall Plantation with Library of Congress recording equipment and captured the young Muddy Waters performing his Delta blues on his home ground. Hearing himself played back convinced Waters he could make a life in music, and he left for Chicago two years later. Often treated as the closing marker of the prewar Delta era, the session also opened the road to the electrified Chicago blues that followed.