Gutbucket blues were growling on the jukebox

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They played almost every night in one of the thousands of little bars and clubs where the black working class had its fun. The hours were very long indeed. Muddy remembered: "Mostly we had a late hour license three and four and five o'clock in the morning. On Saturday night go to about five. Summertime it was daybreak. Go in there in the day and leave in the day ­ next day." And they had to play hard and loud to get a hearing, because, true to black tradition, everybody present felt free to talk, shout, whoop, holler, laugh, quarrel, dance, fight, maybe all at the same time, but never remain passive and silent. Muddy had to change his style to cope with this problem.

When I went into the clubs, the first thing I wanted was an amplifier. Couldn't nobody hear you with an acoustic. Wherever you've got booze, you're going to get a little fight. You get more of a pure thing out of an acoustic, but you get more noise out of an amplifier.

Thus Muddy began to build the big sound into the blues. He learned to stay tight on mike and make the loudspeakers shout and groan over his crying guitar, with the rhythm guitar pumping the bass in the background. Soon an amplified harmonica joined him center stage, not moaning softly in the background but pressed against the microphone; it shrilled, howled, and baahed like a musical windstorm. Muddy felt good.