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.)