Here I Go Again - Got My Mojo Working

This issue Whitesnake legend, Bernie Marsden, attempts to put his finger on the eternal question – what is mojo?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always played Got My Mojo Working by Muddy Waters, and about ten years ago in Mississippi, I was given my own personal mojo by a blues musician I had met in Clarksdale. He gave me a little black bag and said that the “Mojo” would take care of me out on the road. That little black bag has hung on the side of my travel bag ever since. The bag holds all the vital travel items: passport, a bit of local currency, a notepad, plectrums, toothpaste, a spare toothbrush, that kind of thing, but it also has my ‘mojo’ attached to the side.

More than ten years on since I was given the small bag and I still haven’t looked inside. I don’t know what is in that bag, and if I’m honest I don’t know if I want to know, but I like knowing that it’s there after the musician gave it to me in good faith.

So, what is a ‘mojo’?

It seems that the word ‘mojo’ is early 20th century, around 1926. I’ve done a bit of research and although the word is mainly associated with the USA, it’s likely to be of African origin. There is an African word ‘moco’ that means ‘witchcraft’, and this adds up seeing as ‘mojo’ is believed to be a talisman, magic charm, helper, or a kind of spell. Well, I’m not sure that any of that is right but I do know that some guitars I have owned and handled over the years certainly do have a kind of mojo.

I was recently in Hamburg and visited a friend’s store for a guitar weekend. During the weekend, he took me to one side and proceeded to take a guitar out of a large iron safe. The door creaked open and he handed me a brown Lifton guitar case. Inside the case was a 1957 refinished Gold Top Les Paul. It was no longer gold but refinished in a cherry sunburst as many of those 1950s guitars are.