ROLLING FORK — Ninety-five years after the birth of this small Delta town’s most famous bluesman, McKinley Morganfield — who became known throughout the world as Muddy Waters — two of the legend’s sons visited their late father’s birthplace for the first time.

“It’s always been one of my hopes and dreams before leaving this earth to come see the place where my father was born,” said Waters’ first born son, who simply goes by “Mud” Morganfield, Friday afternoon. “Now that I’m here, it’s hard to describe the feeling, but it’s great. It’s a true homecoming.”

Like their father, both “Mud” Morganfield of Chicago and William “Big Bill” Morganfield of Atlanta are blues musicians. Their stop in Rolling Fork was part of Amtrak’s National Train Day 2010 celebration, which is honoring the impact railways have had on the imagery of the blues.

The Morganfields began riding the rails on the whistle-stop blues tour in New Orleans on Thursday, making stops in McComb, Hazelhurst, Jackson, Clarksdale, Cleveland and Indianola before arriving in Rolling Fork. In Clarksdale on Thursday night, the brothers played a show together at Ground Zero Blues Club, and on Friday visited the Delta Blues Museum, where the shack Waters was raised in is on display.

“The whole thing, it was just another job offer to me at first,” “Big Bill” Morganfield admitted to the 100 or so who showed up for their stop in Rolling Fork. “But it’s become so much more than that. Tracing my father’s roots — my roots — it’s worth so much more than any money you could have paid me.”

The Morganfields’ stop in Rolling Fork also gave them the opportunity to meet an uncle for the first time — 85-year-old Robert Morganfield, Waters’ half brother, who still lives in the town of 2,500. Robert Morganfield was joined by a few of his own children, who also got to meet their cousins for the first time, and said he was glad to see Waters’ legacy being celebrated.

“I remember when Muddy came back here in 1973 to play just up from where the tracks used to be here, and the mayor was there and everything, but didn’t hardly no one show up,” recalled Morganfield, who did not get to meet his brother until he had already moved to Chicago and established himself. “When you’re dead, the history is there and you become a legend — but when you’re alive, no one really cares.”

In 2008, a Mississippi Blues Trail marker honoring Waters was erected in Rolling Fork in the small park along the former railroad line where Friday’s reception was held. A year later, a small plantation shack was reconstructed and moved on site next to a bottle tree. Within the shack, an old cook stove, faded glass soda bottles and aged wooden chairs are surrounded by some biographical info about Waters and old posters promoting his shows.

“We will continue working to preserve the Muddy Waters legacy and history in this city,” Rolling Fork Mayor James Denson promised the crowd Friday.

The Morganfield brothers were to carry on to Greenwood Friday evening, where they were to re-board the City of New Orleans train and pick up another famous Mississippi bluesman, Bobby Rush, in Memphis. The Morganfields and Rush are to wrap up the tour with a reception in Chicago today, but not before treating travelers to an overnight concert aboard the train.

“They’re going to be in for a very special treat,” said Amtrak spokeswoman Darlene Abubakar.

Waters’ birth date is often disputed, but April 4, 1915, is the most agreed upon one. While he was born in the Jug’s Corner community in rural Issaquena County outside town, he always called Rolling Fork his birthplace.

Waters was 3 when his mother died and his grandmother took him to Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale. There, he earned the nickname “Muddy” for his love of playing in creeks and puddles. He began playing harmonica at age 7, but didn’t pick up the guitar until 17.

For the next nine years, Muddy worked the farm by day and honed his guitar skills by night in area juke joints as part of a trio. In 1941, folklorist Alan Lomax tracked him down and recorded him for the first time for the Library of Congress. Two years later, Waters boarded a train for Chicago, where he soon traded in his acoustic guitar for an electric. Waters’ searing, electric-charged slide guitar quickly distinguished him from many other bluesmen in Chicago, who in turn began imitating his style.

Waters had his first real hit in 1948 with “I Can’t Be Satisfied,” and over the next decade would record such legendary tracks as “Rollin’ Stone,” “Turn the Lamp Down Low (Baby, Please Don’t Go),” “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man” and “Got My Mojo Working” — many written by Vicksburg native Willie Dixon.

After sliding into relative obscurity in the late 1960s, Waters re-emerged in the 1970s and recorded records that put him back in the spotlight in his twilight years. Waters was 68 when he died April 30, 1983, from a heart attack.