Muddy Waters: The Mojo Man

Rating:
Summary: a must read for any fan of music
Review: I have never read a book about Muddy Waters that proved to be so informative. I've been reading about Muddy for years and this book offered up new information of which I had not been aware. Ms. Tooze did a heck of a job researching this book. I beleive she had her MOJO workin'.

Rating:
Summary: An Impressionistic Portrait
Review: Tooze's new biography is most useful for its ample use of primary accounts from Waters and those close to him. The book works best as a loving tribute to some of the most influential music of the twentieth century. Yet a facile prose style and a lack of contextualization make this a frustratingly one-dimensional biography. One finishes with only an impressionistic sense of this singularly important individual. Tooze pays virtually no attention to the women in Waters' life, and misinforms the reader by repeating apocryphal tall-tales. Mojo Man is a poorly written and shallow portrait of a mighty and deep historical figure.

Rating:
Summary: Reads as smoothly as someone's final thesis
Review: Whereas it's hard to call any book that provides information on Muddy Waters could be bad, this book has 2 major problems to overcome:

1) It's obvious Ms. Tooze knows her subject, as well as lots of big words in the english language. However, her professors should have taught her when such language is appropriate. Her writing style is in stark contrast to the man she attempts to introduce us to, making reading the book a task; and

2) The editors should be chastised for their use of footnoting. Many of the other biographies I have read were footnoted in such a manner as to enable one to read two sentences without encountering yet another stop for footnote. There indeed are better ways to deal with footnotes.

The book reads about as smoothly as someone's final thesis. Ms. Tooze has taken an icon of the blues world and put his life story in a book that is almost unreadable. If you're looking for information on Muddy, it might be here but you'll fall asleep trying to find it - If you just want to see some pictures of the man then it might be worth your time.