When I Left Home
“As is the case with all artists who are sure of their work, Buddy is an absolute gentleman. When I first heard him, I got scared. Musically, he had raised the bar and continues to do so. Buddy has never failed to amaze me first as an artist and secondly as a beautiful guy. I did not give him my guitar for show! I loved that axe, yet I loved what Buddy gave us all even more. Long may he give us his gift.”
Keith Richards
According to Eric Clapton, John Mayer, and the late Stevie Ray Vaughn, Buddy Guy is the greatest blues guitarist of all time. An enormous influence on these musicians as well as on Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, he is the living embodiment of Chicago blues.
Guy’s epic story stands at the absolute nexus of modern blues. He came to Chicago from rural Louisiana in the fifties—the very moment when urban blues were electrifying our culture. He was a regular session player at Chess Records. Willie Dixon was his mentor. He was a sideman in the bands of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. He and Junior Wells formed a band of their own. In the sixties, he became a recording star in his own right.
When I Left Home tells Guy’s picaresque story in his own words, those of a storyteller who remembers everything, including blues masters in their prime and the exploding, evolving culture of music that happened all around him.
Praise