Nothing to Prove: Mac Arnold Returns to the Blues

The 2024 Horry County Museum Documentary Film Series continues with the documentary, Nothing to Prove: Mac Arnold Returns to the Blues.

Southpaw bassist and South Carolina native Mac Arnold was only ten years old when he and his brother built a guitar out of a gas can, a couple strips of wood, a handful of nails and some screen wire. Arnold played in J. Floyd & the Shamrocks (who frequently featured a young James Brown on piano) while still in high school, and officially began his professional career when he joined Charles Miller’s band in the early '60s. He moved to Chicago around 1965 and began working with saxophonist A.C. Reed before hooking up with Muddy Waters and his band in 1966. The Waters stint led to a fair amount of studio work, and Arnold played bass on several 1960s blues albums, including Otis Spann’s The Blues Is Where It’s At and John Lee Hooker’s Live at Cafe Au Go Go. By the 1980s Arnold had tired of the road and moved back to South Carolina, settling in his hometown of Pelzer, where for all practical purposes he retired from the music business. A group of local musicians kept after him to start performing again, though, which led to Arnold eventually fronting his own band, Mac Arnold & Plate Full o’ Blues.

The film is free to the public and will be shown at 1 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 18, at the Horry County Museum, located at 805 Main Street in Conway.

The Horry County Museum Documentary Film Matinees will continue throughout 2024. For more information, call the Horry County Museum at (843) 915-5320 or e-mail hcg.museum@horrycountysc.gov.

View a list of films