Musselwhite, whose father and paternal grandfather were also named Charlie Musselwhite (making him Charlie Musselwhite III), was born in
Kosciusko, Mississippi to white parents. Originally claiming to be of partly
Choctaw descent, in a 2005 interview he said his mother had told him he was of distant
Cherokee descent. His family considered it natural to play music. His father played guitar and harmonica, his mother played piano, and another relative was a
one-man band. Musselwhite then took off in search of the rumored "big-paying factory jobs" up the "Hillbilly Highway",
Highway 51 to Chicago, where he continued his education on the
South Side, making the acquaintance of blues musicians
Lew Soloff,
Muddy Waters,
Junior Wells,
Sonny Boy Williamson,
Buddy Guy,
Howlin' Wolf,
Little Walter, and
Big Walter Horton. Musselwhite immersed himself completely in the musical life, living in the basement of and occasionally working at Jazz Record Mart (the record store operated by
Delmark Records founder
Bob Koester) with
Big Joe Williams and working as a driver for an exterminator, which allowed him to observe what was happening around the city's clubs and bars. He took advantage of the clout this album gave him to move to San Francisco, where, instead of being one of many competing blues acts, he held court as the king of the blues in the exploding countercultural music scene, an exotic and gritty figure to the flower children. Musselwhite convinced Hooker to move to California. , Italy, in 2000 In 1990 Musselwhite signed with
Alligator Records, a step that led to a resurgence of his career. In 1998, Musselwhite appeared in the film
Blues Brothers 2000. He played the harmonica in the
Louisiana Gator Boys, which featured many other blues and R&B musicians, such as
B.B. King,
Bo Diddley,
Eric Clapton,
Koko Taylor,
Jimmie Vaughan,
Dr. John, and
Jack DeJohnette. Over the years, Musselwhite has branched out in style. His 1999 recording,
Continental Drifter, is accompanied by
Cuarteto Patria, from Cuba's Santiago region, the Cuban music counterpart of the
Mississippi Delta. His two albums,
Sanctuary and
Delta Hardware, were released by
Real World Records. Musselwhite played on
Tom Waits' 1999 album
Mule Variations. He can be heard at the beginning of the song "Chocolate Jesus" saying "I love it". Waits has mentioned that this is his favorite part of the song. In 2002, he was featured on the
Bo Diddley tribute album
Hey Bo Diddley: A Tribute!, performing the song "
Hey Bo Diddley". Musselwhite lost both of his parents in December 2005, in separate incidents. His mother, Ruth Maxine Musselwhite, was murdered. Musselwhite joined the judging panel of the 10th annual Independent Music Awards, to assist independent musicians' careers. He was also a judge for the 7th and 9th Independent Music Awards. Musselwhite was inducted into the
Blues Hall of Fame in 2010. The same year, he appeared on the
JW-Jones recording "Midnight Memphis Sun", along with
Hubert Sumlin. Also in 2010, he released the album
The Well. In the title song he credits
Jessica McClure's ordeal as a child trapped in a well for over 58 hours in 1987 for inspiring him to quit drinking, stating, She was trapped in there with a broken arm in the dark, in a life-and-death situation she was singing nursery rhymes to herself and being brave... It made my problems seem tiny. So as a prayer to her and myself, I decided I wasn't going to drink till she got out of that well. It was like I was tricking myself, telling myself that I wasn't going to quit for good, just until she got out. It took three days to get her out, and I haven't had a drink since. For the first half of 2011, Musselwhite toured with the acoustic-electric blues band
Hot Tuna. which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album. Musselwhite also teamed with
Ben Harper to record the album
Get Up!, which was released in January 2013. In January 2014, it won a
Grammy Award for
Best Blues Album. In 2014 and 2015, he won a
Blues Music Award in the category Best Instrumentalist – Harmonicist. At the 40th
Blues Music Awards ceremony in 2019, Musselwhite's joint composition with
Ben Harper, "No Mercy In This Land", was named as 'Song of the Year'. In 2023, Musselwhite won another Blues Music Award with the 'Acoustic Album of the Year' title for his LP,
Mississippi Son. Musselwhite portrays Alvin Reynolds in the 2023
Martin Scorsese film
Killers of the Flower Moon. ==Discography==