Muddy Waters

The Supreme Court is most prolix when least principled. On Monday, the court produced 1 pound 14 ounces of opinions about abortion. It's mostly pseudo-constitutional reasoning traces back 19 years to 57 words by which the court severed its original abortion decision from the Constitution: "The right of privacy, whether it be founded in the 14th Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or,...

The message was sent out by the Eagles on draft day, and Andre Waters didn't need his answering machine to get it. It was delivered live and in color on national television with the 48th name announced during the NFL draft. " . . . With their second choice, the Philadelphia Eagles select Jesse Campbell, safety, North Carolina State. " Minutes later, the Eagles announced that they projected the 6-2 1/2, 212- pound Campbell at strong safety, a position Waters has held down for seven seasons.

These days, it's not too easy to find a band that plays classic '50s-style Chicago blues, in or out of the Windy City. Sure, there are scores of outfits that cover the standard repertoire, from "Mannish Boy" to "Sweet Home Chicago. " But too often these appeals to contemporary rock audiences - based on warmed-over funk, overblown horns and high-voltage guitars - wind up diluting the source and sounding hopelessly out of date. Jimmy Rogers plays the real stuff. Rogers, who brought his All Star Band to the Ambler Cabaret Friday night, was Muddy Waters' second guitarist from 1951 to 1956.

Welcome to another season of dirtysomething, the NFC East miniseries in which the Washington Redskins critique the Eagles' brand of football. In yesterday's installment, several Redskins discussed the Eagles' latest prime-time performance, a 32-24 win over the Minnesota Vikings. Specifically, the Redskins addressed safety Andre Waters's controversial knee shots on Minnesota quarterback Rich Gannon that are currently under review by NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue. "I thought it was outrageous," defensive tackle Tim Johnson said.

Tom Biffle, a 32-year-old professional angler from Wagoner, Okla., overcame rainy conditions and increased his lead yesterday in the BASS Masters Classic, freshwater fishing's most prestigious event. Biffle caught his second five-bass limit for a cumulative total of 25 pounds, 8 ounces. All 10 fish were released alive after the weigh-in at the Richmond Coliseum. Rain the night before and during much of yesterday's competition made fishing difficult for the 41 finalists. Muddied waters in many parts of the James River and its tributaries forced competitors to revise game plans after they had experienced good conditions during Thursday's opening day of the three-day tournament.

As important as Muddy Waters' music was in postwar America, relatively few people will soak up all his genius the first time through. The rewards for staying with it, however, are vast. "The Chess Box," a beautifully produced, well-annotated, six-album, three-CD box set (MCA), is as close as anyone will come to presenting a capsule history of Muddy Waters. It includes 72 tracks, from "Gypsy Woman" in 1947 through the early '70s. Along the way it picks up a few obscurities - the unreleased "Good Looking Woman" from 1948, plus some alternate takes - but mostly it sticks to the core of Waters' music, classic blues like "Rolling Stone," "I Just Want to Make Love to You," "Forty Days and Forty Nights," "Got My Mojo Workin," "She's Nineteen Years Old," "Mannish Boy" and "Hoochie Coochie Man. " Ironically, this is where the uninitiated may get confused.

Muddy Waters had a face that was as majestic as the blues. It was defined by high cheekbones, a broad nose and eyes that always held a twinkle. His mouth, topped by a suave, meticulously groomed mustache, was small, except when he smiled, when it seemed big enough to swallow you whole. It was a face whose dignified presence insisted that an exclamation point be put on a line from his song "Mannish Blues": "Ain't that a man!" Blues is often a bad dream, with artists dying young, broke or unappreciated - sometimes all three.

It was all uphill to the Schuylkill, the wind was blowing, and he was planning a few pirouettes on one stilt, so Kofi Gyemerah chose the short pair. They made him about 10 feet tall and, dressed the way he was, conspicuous. A raffia ponytail swung from the top of his black-masked hood. He wore floppy pajamas splattered with sun-bleached turquoise snail shapes, and waved a feather frond. He also had a cowbell attached to the seat of his pants, which clanged when he walked. Gyemerah, an African stilt walker from Philadelphia, dances above the crowd's hairline for a living, but of all his ethnic gigs, the annual Odunde festival is the one he likes best.

When the paved road ends, you've reached Blue Hill. Only dusty gravel paths twist by this cluster of scrapwood shacks tucked among the pine and hardwood trees that blanket the southwestern Mississippi hills. The two- and three-room houses are little more than rotting wooden floors and walls too weak to inhibit the stinging winter winds. This is a rural ghetto, where life is as hard today as it was generations ago, where people still depend on the forest and dark soil to feed them when the money runs out. Electricity is a luxury that few can afford, and - until now - running water has been little more than a dream.

In this pristine place at the northernmost edge of the park, here beside the rugged, rocky slabs and ancient oaks drifts the peaceful Pennypack. Its dusky, cool waters wind across Pennypack Park, traipsing past Pine and Verree Roads, bending near Tabor Road, then ambling by Bustleton Avenue and under busy Roosevelt Boulevard. It circles on past shady Rhawn Street, forming a still pool of glistening, sun-dappled water. Then - whoosh! - the bottom drops out and down it roars over granite steps, a creamy commotion crashing down, down, splashing against boulders, swirling around rocks, its foamy, white-capped waves washing against the muddy banks, now lapping smaller stones until, spent, it is tranquil again, meandering into historic Frankford, flowing quietly, lightly, beyond Torresdale Avenue where it finally joins the mighty Delaware River.