Got My Mojo Working
| "Got My Mo-Jo Working" | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Single by Ann Cole and the Suburbans | |
| B-side | "I've Got a Little Boy" |
| Released | April 1957 |
| Format | 7-inch 45 rpm record |
| Recorded | 1956 |
| Genre | Blues |
| Length | 2:37 |
| Label | Baton 237 |
| Writer(s) | Preston Foster |
| "Got My Mojo Working" | |
|---|---|
| Single by Muddy Waters | |
| B-side | Rock Me |
| Released | 1957 |
| Format | 10-inch 78 rpm & 7-inch 45 rpm records |
| Recorded | December 1, 1956 |
| Genre | Blues |
| Length | 2:50 |
| Label | Chess 1652 |
| Writer(s) | Disputed, see text |
| Producer(s) | Leonard Chess, Phil Chess |
"Got My Mojo Working" is a blues song written by Preston "Red" Foster and first recorded by Ann Cole in 1956. Muddy Waters popularized it in 1957 and the song was a feature of his performances throughout his career. A mojo is an amulet or talisman associated with hoodoo, an early African-American folk-magic belief system. Rolling Stone magazine included Waters' rendition of the song is on its list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time at number 359. In 1999, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences gave it a Grammy Hall of Fame Award and it is identified on the list of "Songs of the Century".
The song was written by Preston "Red" Foster, an African-American musician unrelated to the actor of the same name. Music publisher and executive Sol Rabinowitz described Foster as "one of the shyest human beings I've ever met", and a judge in the early 1970s described him as "a Black man, about forty years of age... with bleached blonde hair and highly modish clothing [who] sat quietly in the courtroom...".
According to Rabinowitz, Foster approached him in the mid-1950s with several songs. Rabinowitz said:
I realized he had a way with lyrics, and felt that he might create something really worthwhile. One day he walked in with Mo Jo. I was planning a second session with Ann Cole, and the song seemed perfect for her. She loved it and learned it in an hour. We recorded the song a few days later..... She was booked for a tour throughout the South as the opening act for Muddy Waters. She performed with his band backing her up. I happened to see the show at a club... and heard her singing Mo Jo in the show. I had asked her not to perform any unreleased songs on stage, to avoid just this problem..... Ann Cole ignored me and was singing Mo Jo all over the South with Muddy's band. He went back to Chicago after the tour and told Leonard Chess of Chess Records he had written a new song that he wanted to record. It was recorded and released the same week as the Ann Cole version..... I called [Leonard Chess] to tell him he had recorded a song published by my company and that he owed us royalties for the sales of Muddy's recording. He signed a mechanical license agreeing to pay us royalties and I thought the problem was solved. Over the years we have had legal action concerning the song, but today, that is over, and the song is now acknowledged to be Preston Foster's.
...
Wikipedia