When I Left Home

by Guy, Buddy

  “Did I tell you what happened to me coming outta St. Louis the other month?” Wolf asked me.

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Detroit Junior, he was driving my car, and he was pissed at me about something. So he pulls over and is all set to pull me out and whup my ass ’cause he knows I’m old and tired. But what he don’t know is that I know I’m old and tired. That’s why I don’t ever let go of my gun. When he opens the door, he sees my gun before he sees my eyes. ‘Whose ass you gonna whip now?’ I say. ‘Oh, I was just playing, Wolf.’ ‘Well, I’m playing too,’ I say. It’s colder than a motherfucker—gotta be below zero—and I think he needs to cool off. ‘Best way for you to cool off, Detroit Junior,’ I say, ‘is to take off your shoes and socks and stand in that cold grass for about forty-five minutes.’ ‘I can’t do that,’ he says. ‘Well, I can blow off your fuckin’ head,’ I say. I keep my gun on him for forty-five minutes, and for forty-five minutes I’m feeling mighty good about old age.”

  The Wolf had me laughing.

  “If you think that’s funny,” he said, “lemme tell you about that bass player of yours.”

  “Jack Myers?”

  “That’s right. I used him for some college gig up in New York. He wasn’t used to playing with me, and I swear he was outta tune.”

  “Not Jack,” I said. “Jack’s never outta tune.”

  “Maybe not outta tune for Buddy Guy, but sure as hell outta tune for Howlin’ Wolf. Anyway, the gig’s over and we driving back, and I say stop so I can buy me some whiskey. I get my pint and I tell Jack and Hubert Sumlin—’cause Hubert wasn’t playing right that night either—I say, ‘If you motherfuckers want a drink, don’t look at me. The way you was playing was so downright awful that you don’t deserve nothing. I even start rhymin’ on their asses, saying, ‘I just played a college where the students have some knowledge, but I’m having me a fit ’cause my band ain’t playing shit.’ They start laughing, and I don’t like that. I don’t like to be laughed at. I say, ‘If you ever play outta tune like you did tonight and I don’t kick your ass, then Jesus is possum.’”

  Wolf is through telling his story just as we arrive at the fancy hotel where the Stones are staying. We get the best whiskey and all the food we want. We shoot the shit for a while and then go to the show, where we’re ushered into special seats.

  From the stage the Stones say something nice about the Wolf, and that warms my heart because he deserves all the praise in the world. When they introduce him to the crowd, though, I can see the pain in his eyes from how much it hurts to stand. The Wolf was once a powerful man. There was a time when no one in this right mind would fuck with the Wolf. Now the Wolf is old and feeble. Not many of the thousands of people who have come to yell for the Stones bother to look up at the Wolf. They don’t really care. But the Stones care. The Stones was the ones who told some American TV shows that they wouldn’t go on if Muddy Waters wasn’t on there with them. The Stones was good to Muddy and the Wolf, and that’s the memory I keep in my heart.

  At the end of 1975 me and Junior Wells went on a goodwill State Department trip to the Central African Republic. On Thanksgiving Day it was a hundred degrees with humidity off the chart. We decided to wash our underwear and hang ’em out to dry. After they dried we got dressed and headed out. During the gig that night Junior started complaining about a terrible pain in his butt. We went to a doctor who right away knew what happened.

  “You did one of two things,” he told Junior. “You either sat on a wet toilet seat or you hung out your underwear to dry.”

  “Yes, sir,” Junior said, “I hung out my underwear.”

  “That’s when the moisture got a fly to lay an egg. And the egg hatched a worm. And the worm got in your backside.”

  “Ouch!” I said.

  “How you gonna get it out?” asked Junior.

  Doctor picked up a tool that looked like a can opener.

  “Oh Lord,” said Junior.

  “It’s quick,” said the doctor, “and it’ll do the trick.”

  After the doctor got the worm out of Junior I said, “One thing’s for sure—from now on, wherever I am in Africa, I’m gonna shit like a cow standing in the meadow. I ain’t sitting on no toilet seat. And I ain’t washing out no underwear.”

  While we were there I asked the doctor to check my blood pressure. I’d been taking medicine because it was too high.

  Blood pressure was okay, but the doctor asked, “Let me see your blood pressure pills.”

  He looked ’em over and said, “Hope you haven’t been looking for any women over here.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “Because with this blood pressure medicine, you ain’t got no nature.”

  “My doctor didn’t tell me that.”

  “When you get home, ask him.”

  “I will.”

  And I did. And sure enough, he had forgotten to mention that. I had him adjust the dosage so my nature come back.

  It was the first week of January in 1976 when we arrived back at O’Hare. The heat in Africa was unbearable, but the snow in Chicago was piled up high. Minutes after we landed we heard the news.

  “The Wolf is dead,” someone said. “The cancer killed him.”

  Junior knew him for a longer time than I did. “There ain’t ever gonna be another Wolf,” he said.

  That was the truth. I remembered something else that was true, something that Hubert Sumlin said about the Wolf. He meant it with love and respect when he said, “Wolf ain’t no natural man. He’s a beast.”

  “You think of those cats like Charley Patton and Robert Johnson,” Junior said as we drove from the airport into the city. “We didn’t get to play with them. But we was blessed to play with the Wolf.”

  All I could say was “Amen.”

  Sixty-Three

  The Wolf made sixty-five. When I think of how hard he lived, I’m amazed he made it that long. When he died, I couldn’t help but think how much I loved these men who were my teachers, fathers, and friends. I had to be the luckiest guy alive to take that train on September 25, 1957, and get to Chicago when these beautiful guys were still going strong. They breathed their blues all over the city, all over the musicians—first the black ones and then the white ones, and then musicians far away as Africa and Asia.

  By the middle of the seventies the company that bought Chess got bought by someone else who closed down the studio.

  “I was on that label for nearly thirty years,” Muddy said. “They keep calling it Chess, but it ain’t Chess. The real Chess died with Leonard.”

  “Who you gonna record for?” I asked.

  “Ain’t sure and ain’t worried, ’cause someone will have me.”

  April of 1976 the phone rang.

  “Buddy Guy,” said the man with a Southern accent. “This is Clifford Antone. I have a club down in Austin, and I’m your biggest fan.”

  “Well, thank you, sir,” I said. “Never felt too welcome down there in Texas.” I told him the story about my time in Texas with Elmore James and the club owner who put the gun to Elmore’s head.

  “This is a different deal, Buddy,” said Clifford. “This is my club. And I want to bring you and Junior Wells down to surprise Muddy for his sixty-third birthday party. Gonna send you both first-class tickets and put you up in a first-class hotel. You won’t have to play but a few numbers.”

  “I’ll play all night if you wanna.”

  Clifford didn’t talk like an owner. He talked like a fan. He talked about how he brought Eddie Taylor back together with Jimmy Reed. He talked about a group of white boys called the Fabulous Thunderbirds with a guitarist named Jimmie Vaughan and a harp man called Kim Wilson. He said how much Muddy loved them and promised I would too.

  When me and Junior arrived in Austin, Clifford was there to take us around. Turned out he was from Port Arthur, Janis Joplin’s hometown. He told us how his people were from Lebanon and got into the grocery business. The man treated us like kings. I r
emember him saying, “Having you guys here is like having the president and the pope on the same stage.”

  The club was at Sixth Street and Brazos. Clifford said he was building it as a monument to the blues.

  While Muddy was performing we snuck backstage so he wouldn’t see us. As I was listening Clifford said, “Those are the Fabulous Thunderbirds. That’s the Jimmie Vaughan I was telling you about.”

  The thing between Jimmie and his harp man reminded me of the thing between Muddy and Little Walter—it was right tight. Jimmie didn’t play with no gimmicks. He played blues the way blues should be played. He knew what not to play and how to make you wanna hear more.

  When it was time to sing “Happy Birthday,” me and Junior came waltzing out on stage with the cake. You could’ve knocked the Mud over with a feather. He was grinning from ear to ear. He told the audience, “See these here boys? I known ’em since they was kids. I raised ’em.”

  We all got into playing “Got My Mojo Working” real strong, and I got to feeling that, even in this age of disco, maybe blues could still draw a crowd. Seemed like the public had turned their back on the blues, but down here in Texas they was blues crazy. And this man Clifford Antone had a love for the music as powerful as anyone I’ve ever met. I was thinking—no, I was feeling—that love might be reason enough to go to sleep that night with a little hope in my heart.

  Another Texan named Johnny Winter helped Muddy by producing an album on Columbia Records.

  “After all these many years, felt strange cutting a record for someone other than Chess,” said Muddy, “but it also felt good. Johnny knew how to work me.”

  “You use Winter’s band?” I asked.

  “Plus Pinetop on piano, Big Eyes on drums, and Cotton on harp.”

  Muddy sounded excited about it. I went back to his house for a visit and was glad to see him in good health and high spirits.

  “What you calling the record?”

  He laughed before saying, “When we got through, I could feel my dick getting hard. So I’m calling it Hard Again. What do you think?”

  “I think Muddy Waters is ready go out there and chase down some more nineteen-year-olds.”

  I was glad Muddy was finding new success, but I was going nowhere fast. I wasn’t gigging all that much out of town. In town I played at the Checkerboard where business wasn’t booming. I was hanging on—wasn’t about to give up on my blues club—but this was a time, late in the seventies, when the blues got a bad case of the blues.

  I remember being at a blues festival when I overheard two fans talking. They didn’t know my face, so they was free to say what they believed. They was looking over the program when one cat said to the other, “Buddy Guy is on the bill. You know who he is?”

  “One of those old blues guys.”

  “How old?”

  “Buddy Guy? Oh man, he’s been around. Got to be in his nineties.”

  At the time I was forty-three.

  I couldn’t get the attention of any of the major record labels. Even the minor ones wouldn’t come my way. I was in France when a local man called Didier Tricard said he’d record me and my brother Phil. Cat let us do anything we wanted, and I have to say that Stone Crazy—where I got to be me—still sounds pretty goddamn good. Didier said he would even let me name the label he’d issue it on. I called it Isabell for my mom. We cut it in Toulouse and got to play loose and free. No one really heard the record, though, and it got lost in the shuffle.

  Same kind of story with a cat from England, John Stedman. He came over and recorded me and Phil live at the Checkerboard in 1979. He caught some good jams and put out the record on his JSP label, but it didn’t make no noise. Far as the American labels went, Buddy Guy was stale as last week’s moldy bread.

  The thing with Junior was also hurting bad. His drinking was making him do and say things that, when sober, he’d never say or do. When he played poker, he started wearing a holster that held two guns. If he won and got happy—or if he lost and got unhappy—he’d start into shooting holes in the wall. That would bring out the police, who’d haul him off to jail and come get me for the bail.

  We’d still get called out to California for gigs, but the money was so small that we’d have to use pickup bands that had a hard time following us. I’d try to whip the cats into shape, but Junior—not the world’s most patient man—would go off and threaten the lives of any musician who messed up his time.

  In Boston I left my motel room to get some ice when I happened to glance down the hallway at the Coke machine. There was Junior, naked as the day he was born.

  “Go in and put on some clothes,” I said.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “’Cause I don’t want them to kick us outta here.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Ever hear of indecent exposure?”

  “Ain’t nothing indecent ’bout being naked. Women like seeing me naked. One’s up in my room who’s buck naked herself. She’s fixing to come down here and join me.”

  “Oh Lord” was all I could say.

  Junior was losing it. He was even losing it on stage with me. If he thought I was playing too long or too loud, he’d grab the neck of my guitar to stop me. His big number, of course, was “Messin’ with the Kid.” That was his showpiece. I liked playing it. Didn’t even mind playing it twice on the same night. But when one night he demanded we play it six straight times, I had to say, “Junior, I ain’t messin’ with that kid no more.”

  I told you how Muddy would beat on a woman—well, Junior, bless his heart, would get beat by a woman. A couple of them hurt him pretty bad. Once a singer down in Austin, Lou Ann Barton, a white girl who worked with the Vaughan brothers and sang the blues black, had Junior chasing her all over the club, whispering, “Pussy, pussy, pussy” in her ear. She wanted to be left alone, and when Junior wouldn’t stop messin’ with her, she hauled off and socked him in the jaw. He collapsed like a house of cards.

  Because of his drinking, our shows kept getting shorter. Got harder for him to stand up there and perform for very long. I couldn’t have that. I’ve never missed a gig for fear of disappointing fans. And when I saw that look of disappointment on the fans’ faces because our shows were so short, I felt terrible. I wanted to stay up there and keep the show going on my own, but Junior wouldn’t have it.

  By the end of the seventies I couldn’t have him anymore. If I wanted to keep him as a brother and friend, I knew I’d have to end our professional relationship. It wasn’t easy. Not only did I love the man, I also loved his music. We were a couple married in the blood of the blues. In the minds of many fans we belonged together. And on a business level we had drawing power.

  People warned me against cutting him off. One cat said, “You need him to get those bookings. They don’t want Buddy Guy. They want Buddy Guy and Junior Wells.”

  “He’s been half-stepping,” I said. “He ain’t all there.”

  “Half of Junior is better than no Junior at all.”

  “I’ve always done things on my own. I’ll be fine.”

  “You’ll be broke.”

  “I’m already broke.”

  “You’ll be broker.”

  No use arguing. The aggravation wasn’t worth whatever extra bookings I’d get with Junior on the bill. By the start of a new decade—the eighties—Junior and I were traveling down different roads. Once in awhile we’d bump into each other. He was always welcome at the Checkerboard, but we was never a team again.

  Weeds Keep Growing

  I was born into agriculture. Growing things interests me. There’s a sure-enough science to cultivate the earth in a way that gets you what you want. Seeds are amazing. You plant ’em, you water ’em, you watch for the results. You gotta deal with nature in a way that respects nature’s own program. Go against nature, and nature will fuck you.

  Sometimes, though, nature will spring a surprise on your ass. Nature will up and say, “Here’s some weeds that are gonna grow no matter what you d
o. Try to kill ’em and they’ll come back strong. You can trim ’em, but you can’t get rid of ’em. They stronger than whatever chemical and poisons you wanna spray over ’em. They connected to the earth.”

  The blues is like one of them weeds. The blues is rooted so deep into the ground, spreading so far and growing so fast, that nothing can stop ’em. For a year or two or three you might think they gone. You might think that other kinds of music have drowned them out. But one day you’ll be looking out your window and you’ll see ’em everywhere—a whole backyard of blues. Not only that, they running over your neighbors’ yard and all over the neighborhood. They everywhere.

  I say that because the blues, due to the English rock and rollers, came back in the sixties only to back off in the seventies. But then in the eighties the blues got born again, this time stronger than ever.

  They got born again because they too good to stay dead. They too simple, too pretty, too true to real life. When you break down all the guitar music starting up with the rock and roll of the fifties, you see the blues at the root of the whole thing. Can’t ever get away from the blues. Your mama might have passed on, but she’ll always be your mama. Long as you live, you ain’t ever forgetting her. She gave you life. Well, sir, the blues is life.

  In the eighties my life was a slow build. Back in ’75, Jennifer became my second wife. She was a fine woman who seemed to understand me. She renewed my hopes for a happy life. We had two wonderful children, Rashawnna and Michael. The marriage wasn’t perfect, but it lasted more than thirty years, and that’s saying something.

  In the eighties I also started hearing about younger black bluesmen like Robert Cray. Robert was great. He had a rock audience and he was selling records. Clifford Antone in Austin proved to be one of my angels. He kept bringing me down there to play. I got close to Jimmie Vaughan and then Jimmie’s kid brother, Stevie Ray.