Bill Monroe and Muddy Waters each came off hardscrabble farms in the rural South in the 1930s, moved to the Chicago area in search of better-paying work, and made from the folk music of their home places a powerful genre--Bluegrass for Monroe, Chicago Blues for Waters--that influenced Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and countless others. Readers looking for definitive biographies of these two American masters will not find them here, but Jim Rooney offers something that cannot be found anywhere else, an explanation in their own words, recorded in interviews while they were still in their prime, of how they made their music, led their bands, and kept them going through decades of personnel turnovers and changing audiences. Originally published in 1971. Highly recommended.