When I Left Home - My Story by Buddy Guy

When I Left Home - My Story by Buddy Guy with David Ritz

At age 75, Buddy Guy decided to release a book documenting his life with the primary focus on family, blues guitars, nature, cooking, and women.  The book is a very quick read and makes you feel like you are sitting at Legends across the table from Buddy as he tells you story after story for a few hours.  Buddy breaks the book down into 3 sections.

1. Before I Left Home: This section documents his life on the farm in Lettsworth, Louisiana, and the strong love of his family as cotton croppers.  It takes you through the fortunate experiences he had in receiving his first two guitars.  He talks about his desire to learn and play John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen."  You listen to his stories about playing his first blues clubs on stage as part of a backing band.  His jobs working as a mechanic, a tow truck driver, and in the maintenance department at LSU while living in Baton Rouge with his sister.  He meets a family friend who has come back to Louisiana on vacation from Chicago and tells Buddy to save his money so he can move there to stay with him until he gets on his feet.  Two years and $600 saved, and Buddy finds himself on a train to Chicago.

2.  The Day I Left Home: September 25, 1957 was the day Buddy traveled from Louisiana to Chicago.  In this section, he talks about his train ride and his first day in the Windy City.

3.  After I Left Home: Buddy tells stories about how he was turned down from job after job and was a day away from spending all of the $600 he had saved.  He was about to call his father to request some money so he could get a train ride back to Louisiana.  He finally got his break playing guitar the night before and drove the crowd wild.  You hear stories of him meeting Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, and his "blues brother" Junior Wells.  Stories about his recordings as a backup player at Chess Records, his attempts at solo recordings, owning his first blues club, his children, etc.

This book could easily have been double in size as Buddy dedicated very few pages to the last 40 years of his life making it big as a blues musician.  I was disappointed there was not more.

This book is a must read for any blues fan out there.  If you are like me, you will have it finished before you lay it back down.  Hopefully, there is a second book in the works that tells us more stories about the second half of his life.