When I Left Home (20 page)
Authors: Buddy Guy
Junior had a beautiful soul. I remember one night when Sonny Boy dropped by Theresa’s—the same Sonny Boy who’d pulled a knife when Junior wanted some advice on how to play. Junior wouldn’t even look at him. Sonny Boy tried to say something, but Junior turned his back.
“Wait a minute, motherfucker,” said Sonny Boy. “I know you pissed about how I did you.”
“Goddamn right I am,” said Junior.
“But look here, I told you that shit to see if you was serious. If you really wanted to be a bluesman, I figured you was the kinda cat who would go off and prove me wrong.”
“That’s just what I did.”
“I know,” said Sonny Boy. “I hear. So all I’m saying is that I did you a solid. Wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t blow good as you blow. I got you off your ass, boy.”
Junior closed his eyes and didn’t say nothing. I could hear the wheels turning inside his head.
“You know something ,” he told Sonny Boy. “You right.”
From then on they was cool.
Like a lot of us, Junior had a tough time with the record companies. He told me how he cut his tune “Hoodoo Man Blues” back in the early fifties with Willie Dixon and Memphis Slim. Junior and the label rep went to a deejay to get it played. The rep slipped the deejay $25, but I guess that wasn’t enough ’cause the deejay took the 78 shellac record, threw it on the floor, and smashed it to bits.
“That hurt me to my soul,” Junior told me, “until I swore I’d never record that song again.”
Another thing about Junior: he had a James Brown complex. He felt that James had stolen his thunder. I think that goes back to “Messin’ with the Kid.”
“Messin’,” came out in 1960 and was Junior’s biggest number. He told me—and anyone else who’d listen—how he came up with the idea. A producer named Mel London was set to pick him up for a session at 8 p.m. When Mel got there, Junior’s baby daughter Regina was sitting in her little chair watching TV.
“Where’s your daddy?” asked Mel.
“Asleep.”
“Well, get him up.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He likes to sleep.”
“It’s time for him to go to work. If you won’t wake him up, I will.”
“No you won’t.”
“Careful, kid, or I’ll get you too.”
Regina looked Mel dead in the eye and said, “You ain’t gonna be messin’ with the kid.”
When Junior got up and drove to the studio with Mel, they were laughing about it. Junior said that phrase gave him the idea for the song, and he put some music and rhymes around it. But London got the writer’s credit and handled the copyright. Junior didn’t get anything.
The song became popular, and truth be told, it does have a James Brown feeling to it. But you can’t say that James flat-out copied Junior. The way music goes, we all borrow from each other, especially blues music. But as James Brown grew into a superstar, Junior felt like he deserved that same spot. He never stopped trying to have him a James Brown–sized hit. Yet he missed the mark. Wasn’t that Junior wasn’t a great showman—he was. But aside from Jackie Wilson, there ain’t ever been a showman like James Brown. James created his own category of funk.
Early on, Junior asked me to go on the road with his band as a sideman. Nothing wrong with that. Junior got to Chicago ten years ahead of me. He’d toured with Muddy’s band and I hadn’t. I could see myself joining Junior had it not been for the stories. Last one I heard was about Junior being out of town, where he was drinking at a bar when his drummer told him it was time to leave.
“You’re fired,” said Junior.
“For what?” asked the drummer.
“For disturbing me while I’m drinking.”
For a while Dick Waterman, Junior’s manager, had to play drums even though Dick had never picked up a drumstick before.
My attitude was simple: jamming with Junior was always good. He stopped where I started and he started where I stopped. Whenever Junior showed up the club, I knew we could burn with a blaze. Sometimes the club owners, knowing that customers liked us playing as a team, put both our names on the bill. That was fine. But going out on the road with Junior had to be more trouble than it was worth.
I was right, but I was also wrong. You’ll soon see what I mean.
Flying High, Flying Low
By 1965 Joan and I had our third girl, Colleen Nanette, and was living in the Chicago-style two-flat house I’d bought at 1218 East 72nd Street on the South Side. I wasn’t making a cent from selling any records. I sure as hell hadn’t turned into a star. I’d get a few dollars backing up other Chess artists in the studio, and I kept working the clubs at night while driving the tow truck during the day. It was a rough routine, so I was happy to break it up the few times I found some gigs in Europe.
I give credit to the bluesmen that played overseas before me. The first ones were Big Bill Broonzy, Josh White, and Lonnie Johnson. Then came Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. But when Muddy showed up with Otis Spann, that really opened up the door to what people were calling Chicago blues.
During these trips I met Roy Orbison and got to hang with T-Bone Walker. Willie Dixon got me a few dates in London clubs. That’s when I heard talk about this group called the Yardbirds. A young kid named Rod Stewart volunteered to be my valet. He started talking about how England was in love with rhythm and blues. When I see Rod these days, we laugh about how he was driving me around London.
After one gig two cats came backstage and started questioning me like I was the teacher and they was the students. This was the first time I’d hear their names—Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. They said they slept in a van all night just to get to see me. They also said how they never knew a Strat could play blues. They thought the Strat was only for country music. I told them that it wasn’t my idea. I got it from Guitar Slim. All they wanted to hear was stories about Guitar Slim, Lightnin’ Slim, and Lightnin’ Hopkins. They knew every Chess record where I backed up Muddy and Wolf. They also knew my little single recordings, even the ones I’d done for Cobra.
To make ends meet I had played the gig with only drums and bass. That impressed Clapton. He said, “Man, you make a trio sound big as a full band. And the way you keep your feet moving and throw the guitar around—wow!”
“Ain’t nothing,” I said, “compared to what I seen Guitar Slim do.”
I got on TV on a show called
Ready Steady Go!
, where the announcer called me Chuck Berry. I was also introduced as Chubby Checker.
Ready Steady Go!
, where the announcer called me Chuck Berry. I was also introduced as Chubby Checker.
Germany was another trip altogether. I went over for the American Folk Blues Festival. I understood why Muddy came back from Europe all confused. I got booed because I looked too young, dressed too slick, and my hair was up in a do. Someone said he was also disappointed that I didn’t carry no whiskey bottle with me on stage. They thought bluesmen needed to be raggedy, old, and drunk.
During that performance I was sure I was fucking up because I didn’t hear a sound from the audience. Wasn’t like in America, where folk yell up to you that they’re digging it. In England, when I got through, all I got was mild applause.
Then I was criticized for doing James Brown’s “Out of Sight.” Some writers said a bluesman got no business doing rock and roll or rhythm and blues or whatever they was calling it. Truth is that “Out of Sight” was popular, and I wanted to do something popular. Besides, all this rock and roll and rhythm and blues came out of the blues.
On that same show in Germany when Joe Turner sang “Flip Flop and Fly,” one of his big hits with the rock and roll crowd, it was really a straight-up twelve-blues bar. No one complained. So was “Shake, Rattle and Roll.” When I played behind Big Mama Thornton doing “Hound Dog,” that went over okay. “Hound Dog” was one of the things that got Elvis started—and it was nothin’ but the blues.
Far as I saw, blues fans in Europe was mixed up as a motherfucker. They wanted pure blues, when there ain’t such thing. Blues always been a gumbo where you throw everything in the pot. Blues ain’t no pedigree; it’s a mutt. And far as I’m concerned, mutts are beautiful.
The most beautiful thing about those European trips, though, was spending time with two people—Big Mama and John Lee Hooker.
I was in Baden-Baden Germany, upstairs in my room, when I heard all this commotion from down in the lobby. I went down and saw Big Mama, Roosevelt Sykes, Eddie Boyd, and some other guys. Everyone was drinking hot straight whiskey. I couldn’t handle that, so I took my guitar, went off into the corner, and started playing “Boogie Chillen.”
After a while a skinny man with a deep voice came over and said, “W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-where’d you learn that?”
“I been knowing it forever,” I said.
“B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but who t-t-t-t-t-t-taught it to you?”
“Got it off the record.”
“You ain’t p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-playing it ’xactly like the r-r-r-r-r-record.”
“Who you to say?”
“I can s-s-s-s-s-say it c-c-c-c-c-c-c-cause that’s my s-s-s-s-shit you p-p-p-p-p-playing.”
“No, it ain’t. It’s John Lee’s.”
“Who the f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-fuck you think y-y-y-y-y-y-you talkin’ to?”
I looked over at the man.
“Don’t know,” I said.
“I’m J-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-johnny.”
“I didn’t know John Lee stuttered.”
“Like I s-s-s-s-said, you d-d-d-d-d-don’t know s-s-s-s-s-s-s-ss-s-shit.”
Ever since then we became the best of friends.
Also became good friends with Big Mama, a woman who wore manly clothes and stood big as a house. During one of those concerts when I was playing “Hound Dog” behind her, her teeth fell out. I didn’t know what she’d do. Well, sir, she just bent down, picked up her teeth, and put ’em back in her mouth without missing a lick. She kept on singing, and holy shit, that woman could sing! After that performance I thought maybe I should get me some false teeth, let them fall out while I was playing, and pick’em up like Big Mama picked up hers.
The rest of the musicians on the tour didn’t like hanging out with Big Mama because she was big and bossy. I think her manly ways had them thinking that if they said the wrong thing, she could kick their ass. I believe she could. For some reason she took a liking to me.
One morning I was killing time in the lobby with the other cats, when here comes Big Mama off the elevator. She had on a man’s trousers and a big ol’ Stetson hat. She came right over to me.
“Buddy Guy,” she said, “you and I going souvenir shopping.”
Other cats looked at me like I was crazy to go. But what could I do? I liked the lady. Was her business how she dressed. Besides, she was as good a blues singer as Joe Turner—and that’s saying something. I couldn’t say no. Me and her hit the stores. People looked at us funny. I know we was a strange couple, but I didn’t care.
During that same trip we had to ride in the car from city to city. It was the driver, me, Big Mama, and John Lee Hooker. Mama and Johnny didn’t get on. She was too bossy for him, and he was too contrary for her. I’d sit there for hours, watching them go at it, all the while laughing my ass off.
This was when I came to love John Lee very deeply. Like a lot of these cats, he was a practical man—he got his money before he gave you his music—but he was also a funny man. He had the best stories of anyone. Part of what made them funny was the country way he told them—that and his stutter and lisp. His stutter made you eager to hear how the story would end.
In Germany we were at a restaurant where he wanted to order a steak. None of us knew no German, and the waiter didn’t know English.
“B-b-b-bring me a s-s-s-s-s-steak and sp-sp-sp-sp-spaghetti,” John Lee said.
Waiter looked puzzled.
John Lee started making motions with his hands to look a crawling snake. “N-n-n-n-n-n-noodles,” he said. “Y-y-y-y-you know—spaghetti.”
Waiter ran to the kitchen and came back with some noodles. John Lee smiled. “O-o-o-o-o-okay, now cook me a s-s-s-s-s-s-steak.”
Waiter ran back and forth from the kitchen carrying different stuff—a hot dog, a chicken, a piece of fish—but no steak.
“G-g-g-g-g-g-goddamnit,” said John Lee. “I want m-m-m-m-m-me a steak!”
Waiter just shrugged.
John Lee snapped his fingers like he got an idea.
“Okay, m-m-m-m-m-motherfucker,” he said, “h-h-h-h-h-here’s what I w-w-w-w-w-w-w-want.”
John Lee started motioning his fists like he was milking a cow.
Waiter still didn’t get it. That’s when John Lee took in a deep breath and came out this ear-shattering “M-m-m-m-m-m-m-mooooooooooooooooooo!”
Waiter smiled and John Lee got himself his steak.
After dinner I was hoping he’d start talking about his music. Funny thing, though, how bluesmen don’t talk that much about music. They like talking about women.
“W-w-w-w-w-w-w-when I s-s-s-s-s-still down on the farm in M-m-m-m-m-mississippi,” John Lee said, “I had me all the girls. Had me f-f-f-f-f-five or six different lil’ girls b-b-b-b-b-b-b-because I was the guitar player. Them g-g-g-g-g-girls favor the guitar players. Now one day one of my g-g-g-g-girls, she come running up to me talkin’ ’bout, ‘J-j-j-j-j-j-johnny, a little boy came by and k-k-k-k-k-k-k-kissed Mary.’ M-m-m-m-m-m-mary was one of my girls. Well, I got my switchblade w-w-w-w-with me, and I go d-d-d-d-d-down to the d-d-d-d-ditch where the girls liked to p-p-p-p-p-p-p-play.”
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