This documentary traces the career of seminal bluesman Muddy Waters from his beginnings picking cotton to his death from cancer in 1983.

This documentary traces the career of seminal bluesman Muddy Waters from his beginnings picking cotton to his death from cancer in 1983. His spirit and rough-hewn personality are revealed through frank interviews with his family, mistress and the last of his four wives. The intensity of Waters' music is evoked through rare film clips and early interviews with Waters himself, as well as intimate conversations with band mates and musical cohorts.