When I Left Home

April 16, 2012
On September 25, 1957, Buddy Guy climbed on a train in Hammond, La., with a few clothes in his suitcase, a reel-to-reel tape of a song he had cut, and his Les Paul Gibson guitar, and headed North. As mesmerizing a storyteller as a guitarist, Guy, writing with Ritz, regales readers with tales of growing up picking cotton in rural Alabama, of seeing his first guitar and standing transfixed in front of Lightning Slim for several hours just memorizing the movements of Slim’s hands, of his father’s friend buying his first guitar for him, and of his endless efforts to play the blues as he had heard and seen Slim and others play. In Chicago, Guy discovers the harsh realities of urban living, but it’s not long before his guitar slinging earns him respect and a place to play on a regular basis, as Muddy Waters and B.B. King recognize Guy’s transcendent talent. He shares stories of meeting Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and he recalls that some of the first white fans to come to Chicago’s South Side were musicians like Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield, who along with Eric Clapton, John Mayall, and the Stones often invited Guy and other black blues musicians to open for them, pointing out to the audiences that these guys were the real musicians. Guy’s memoir is a joyous celebration of the blues, one of our greatest musical treasures. Agent: Vigliano Associates.

June 1, 2012
Buddy Guy is a renowned unofficial ambassador of the blues. The blues, he writes, chase the blues away. In this amiable and entertaining autobiography, Guy recalls his dirt-poor childhood in rural Louisiana, picking 70 pounds of cotton on a good day. He recalls, too, the first time he heard a recording of Muddy Waterson a jukebox at a general store. He describes early gigs in Baton Rouge clubs where he had to overcome his natural shyness. He soon learns that many of the bluesmen that he admires live in a faraway place called Chicago. Moving there is so consequential that he recalls the exact date when he left home: September 25, 1957. His recollections are full of fascinating anecdotes about some of the greatest of the twentieth-century bluesmen and the now mostly shuttered South and West Side Chicago blues clubs they played in. Among the musicians are Lightnin' Slim, Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Junior Wells, Muddy Waters, the Rolling Stones, and Eric Clapton; among his stories are those of a record deal with the Beatles that fell through and his ownership of two Chicago blues clubs, the Checkerboard Lounge and Buddy Guy's Legends. A must for Buddy Guy fans and blues enthusiasts.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2012

Like a lot of Chicago blues musicians, Guy started out in the South--Louisiana, to be exact. His father negotiated the purchase of Guy's first guitar when Guy was 12. It cost $4.25 and had two strings. Later, after moving to Chicago, Guy came to know and play with the greats of the age--Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Leonard Chess (of Chess Records fame), and B.B. King, among others. In the 1960s, he was idolized by the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix. Guy is a vibrant and hilarious storyteller. With a natural ease and honesty, he captures the spirit of the age, the culture of violence in the clubs, and the personalities of his colleagues. Ritz (Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye) does a great job of letting Guy's voice come through. Guy's trip to Germany with John Lee Hooker is especially humorous, and the authors capture Hooker's prominent stutter in print. Guy also describes the sad and infamous day Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash. VERDICT Highly recommended for any fan of Guy and those interested in the history of blues music.--Todd Spires, Bradley Univ. Lib., Peoria, IL

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2012
One of the last survivors of Chicago blues' golden age of the 1950s and '60s, Guy retravels a familiar route in this ingratiating but disappointingly slim as-told-to autobiography. The son of rural sharecroppers, he became fixated with playing the guitar after hearing John Lee Hooker's 1949 hit "Boogie Chillen." He caught firsthand glimpses of such Louisiana stars as Lightnin' Slim and Guitar Slim, the latter of whom supplied the blueprint for Guy's flamboyant performing style. He lyrically recalls his 1957 train trip to Chicago, a Mecca for emigre musicians from the South. After an arduous period, he began to burn up the South Side's bars; his local stardom led to record dates at Chess Records, then home to blues giants like Muddy Waters, who encouraged him in his early days, and the forbidding Howlin' Wolf, who wanted to hire him. (Wary of Wolf's harsh treatment of his sidemen, he declined.) Work ultimately became so scarce that Guy drove a tow truck to make ends meet, but he finally found success in the '60s on the European festival scene and then in the rock ballrooms. Guy has a wealth of entertaining, occasionally raunchy stories about the contemporaries he revered, including Muddy, Wolf, Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, Big Mama Thornton and B.B King. Sometimes he takes a jab: Songwriter Willie Dixon was stingy about sharing credit, guitarist Albert King was a tightwad, label owner Leonard Chess never paid royalties or recorded him at his extroverted best. He has fonder memories of the young white performers--especially Brits like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and the Rolling Stones--who helped shine a spotlight on his work. He saves his best stuff for longtime musical partner Junior Wells, the pugnacious, oft-incarcerated harmonica ace. At most junctures, the material about Guy's fellow bluesmen is so choice it pushes the book's purported subject into the background. And there's little about the major renewal of Guy's career after the 1991 release of his Grammy-winning Damn Right, I've Got the Blues. Tasty as a Buddy Guy guitar lick, but seldom revelatory.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.