Waters, like many of his peers, subscribed to the belief that the blues stemmed from a deeply emotional center where pain, hardship and perseverance drove their music. "No one can duplicate the blues I create and play," he noted. "And neither can I imitate the ones who came after me. What makes me proud is that in making a success for myself in Chicago, I was able to open the doors for other blues artists to come up. Maybe that happened in other parts of the country, too."
It happened in other parts of the world, too. From the U.S. to the U.K., blues enraptured legions of young musicians, including Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Peter Green and Keith Richards, who were just starting to find their way around the necks of their guitars. As with rock 'n' roll, the blues was an inherently malleable genre in these young hands.
