Authors: Buddy Guy

When I Left Home (6 page)

BOOK: When I Left Home

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That changed a little when I got into playing the guitar. Ladies like musicians. Some of them came up to me with a smile or a wink. Naturally, I got excited. But my shyness didn’t go away all that fast, and neither did my feeling that I better be cautious. All around me I saw women getting pregnant—women my age. The men didn’t think nothing of it. Sometimes they married the woman and sometimes they just walked away.

“You ain’t ever gonna walk away if you get a woman pregnant,” my daddy said. “You gonna take care of her and the child.”

That’s when I started taking a harder look at older women. Thinking it through, I decided they was a safer bet. As lovers, I saw they could be better than the younger ones. They didn’t mind teaching me what to do and how to do it. I liked learning. I liked how they showed me to take my time. I especially liked the ones who had already been married ’cause they wasn’t looking to have a baby. Matter of fact, having been through it, they were looking
not
to have a baby.

One of those ladies, a wonderful woman named Phyllis, had two little girls and asked me to babysit them. I was happy to say yes and even happier to say yes again when Phyllis invited me into her bed. My idea, though, that ladies with kids wouldn’t be wanting any more didn’t prove entirely true. When I was seventeen, Phyllis had a little girl by me—Judy—and three years later we had another girl she called Dorqus. I was pleased with these babies and also pleased that Phyllis wasn’t interested in getting married. She was the kind of woman who liked being independent. She didn’t put no strings on me, she said she would care for these babies by herself, and I was grateful not to be tied down.

Sometime during my days in Baton Rouge I was at my sister’s playing my guitar—by then I’d gotten a Les Paul Gibson—when who should turn up but Lawrence Chalk, a man we called Shorty. He came from Baton Rouge but later moved to Baton Rouge before going off to Chicago, leaving his wife behind.

“Shorty,” I said, “good to see you, man. What you doin’ back in town?”

“My wife, Buddy. She got killed. Terrible accident.”

“That’s awful, Shorty. I’m really sorry. Out of respect, I’ll put away this here guitar.”

“Don’t do that, Buddy. You keep playing. I see Annie Mae has opened a nice bottle of wine. I got no reason not to get drunk. And the more I drink, the more I got to hear me some music.”

I played “The Things I Used to Do.”

“Well, that’ll get me to drinking,” said Shorty. “That’ll do.”

As Shorty went to drinking, I kept playing. Soon he and Annie Mae were dancing up a storm. It was like that for another couple of hours.

“Hey, Buddy,” he said, “how ’bout Jimmy Reed? You know his songs?”

“I’m learning them.”

“He lives in Chicago. All of ’em do. Muddy Waters. Little Walter. Howlin’ Wolf. They all up there where I live.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Why don’t you come up there?”

“What am I gonna do up there?”

“Find a street corner and play your guitar. Someone’s sure to hear you.”

“I don’t got no money.”

“Save some,” said Shorty. “Save enough for the train ride. And when you get there, you can sleep where I can stay.”

“You mean that?”

“Wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”

“How would I find a job up there?”

“More jobs there than here, Buddy. Where you working now?”

“LSU.”

“All kinds of colleges in Chicago. What you getting now?”

“Twenty-nine dollars a week.”

“You’ll get twice that in Chicago.”

“Twice?”

“Maybe three times. That’s why everyone’s going to Chicago. Chicago’s the place, man.”

Shorty’s words hung heavy. Couldn’t get them off my mind. Chicago was far enough away to be on the moon. Had no family in Chicago. Besides, no one in our family had ever gone off like that. None of us had been out of Louisiana. But knowing that Shorty was living in Chicago planted a seed in my heart. Took a while, but the seed started to grow.

Started thinking that if I ever did go to Chicago, I’d have to play better. So I went to see about taking music lessons.

The music lesson man wanted to give me a book that was hard to understand. Looked like math to me. Didn’t look like no fun.

“This is the book,” he said, “that you need to begin with.”

“Well, sir,” I said, “I’ve already begun.”

“You began with another book?” he asked.

“Begun with a
different
kind of book.”

“What’s it called?”

“‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ by Muddy Waters.”

“That ain’t no book. That’s a song.”

“Yeah, but I can read it like a book. It’s been teaching me like a book. I know every last thing in it.”

“But you need
this
book,” the man said.

After looking it over I said, “Not sure I do. Think I’ll stick with Muddy.”

Without the music book I was doing okay in the little joints around Baton Rouge. I wasn’t making no money, but I had a little reputation. And after seeing Guitar Slim I got me a long cord and started out playing in the alley and then strutting in from the street to the club like the man himself. I had to carry a smoldering iron with me ’cause if my wire broke, I didn’t have the money to buy another one—just smoldered the wire together.

Whether I was up playing in the roadhouses, working at the gas station, doing odd jobs at LSU, or in the bed loving on Phyllis, my thoughts kept going back to Chicago. I didn’t think I was good enough to make a living picking the guitar up there, but I sure did dream of getting a glimpse of Muddy and Walter and them driving around in their fine cars. I just wanted to sneak a peek at the big mansions where they lived. And naturally, I dreamed of going to some beautiful nightclub and hearing them play in the flesh.

But those were dreams. Dreams weren’t real. At the same time, though, I could get crazy with dreams. The dreams went on for some time until I got the nerve to mention it to my daddy.

“Daddy,” I said, “you think I’m crazy to be thinking of going up there to Chicago to stay with Lawrence Chalk?”

“Shorty? Shorty living in Chicago?”

“Yes, sir. He likes it real fine.”

“He thinks you could find some work?”

“That what he says.”

“You think you could make money with your guitar in Chicago?”

“No, I wouldn’t even try. I’d find me a regular job. Shorty says there’s jobs to be had there.”

“Well, if you do play your guitar, play ‘Stagger Lee.’ You know ‘Stagger Lee,’ son?”

“I heard it.”

“If you going to Chicago, you best learn it.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will.”

They had a radio station in Baton Rouge called WXOK where Ray Meadows worked. His deejay name was Diggy Doo, and he liked me. Because they had microphones and a little studio, he told me I could make a sample of my music. Later I’d learn that’s called a “demo.” I’d written a song called “Baby Don’t You Wanna Come Home.” It wasn’t going to compete with J. B. Lenoir or John Lee Hooker, but it didn’t sound too bad when I heard the playback.

“What are you going to do with this, Buddy?” asked Diggy.

“Probably nothing,” I said, “but I’ve been half-thinking of going to Chicago. Just trying to get my nerve up.”

“Well, if you do go, look up Leonard Chess.”

“Who’s he?”

“Man who runs Chess Records.”

“Where Muddy and them make their records?”

“The same.”

“How you know him?”

“He comes through here once a year or so. He makes it a point to tell me what new Chess Records are coming out. I do him the favor of playing ’em.”

“So y’all are friends?”

“Wouldn’t say friends,” said Diggy, “but business associates. I know him well enough to write a letter for you to give him. If you decide to go to Chicago, I’ll give you his address. You can play him this demo.”

“Think he’d like it?”

“Hard to tell what other people are going to like, Buddy, but I like it. I like it a lot.”

Encouragement was coming at me, and I needed it real bad. Even as I turned twenty-one, I still wasn’t what you’d call a real man of the world. Been sheltered on the farm and then sheltered in Baton Rouge. I lived in a small world. Felt like I had a small personality. I thought about Guitar Slim and the way he could excite a crowd, but I didn’t know whether I could do that. At the same time I knew I wanted more than what Baton Rouge had to offer. At the very least, a better job at a college in Chicago would mean more money to send home to Mama. As I tried to decide what to do, Mama stayed on my mind.

After Mama’s stroke I could talk to her, but I still didn’t get much reaction. I felt her spirit and I knew her love was strong as ever. Nothing could change that. But I had to do all the talking.

“Been thinking real hard,” I said to her one night. She was sitting in a chair, just staring ahead. “Been thinking about going to Chicago. I know none of us ever have left you, and I’m scared to do it, Mama, but I’m also scared not to. I say that ’cause I see myself only going so far in Baton Rouge. And you know much I love that music. There’s people in Chicago playing that music that I want to hear. I’m not saying I can play good as them. I can’t. But just to see Muddy Waters is a dream of mine. Can’t deny it. Don’t wanna die, Mama, without seeing Muddy Waters. Don’t wanna die without seeing Little Walter. They up there. Shorty says they play all over the city of Chicago. I’m starting to think I need to go there. But if I do, I promise you I’ll make enough money to buy you a polka-dot Cadillac. How does that sound, Mama?”

Mama didn’t answer, but Daddy, who’d been listening, had slipped into the room. He’d just gotten off his construction job, where he had to push wheelbarrows of concrete up and down a building site. Daddy was about the only person I know strong enough to handle that work.

“Son,” he said, “if you wanna go, go. You don’t need to worry about us. I told you long time ago that me and your mama ain’t dying till we see all our children settled down and doing good. Now when you get to Chicago, you gonna find pretty women who gonna wanna marry you. Marry whoever you want. Makes no difference to me. Marry an elephant if you want, ’cause you the one who gotta sleep with her. Far as your work goes, remember this—I don’t want you to be the best in town. I want you to be the best till the best comes around. You hear me, son?”

“I do.”

I went to sleep that night and fell into crazy dreams. I was picking cotton in the dream, and then I was driving a tractor, then I was hunting in the woods with my dog, I was shooting at rabbits, when all of sudden I saw Lightnin’ Slim sitting in a rocking chair playing his guitar. He was sitting under a big tree with moss coming off the branches. Maybe it’s because his name is Lightnin’, but right then and there the sky broke open, and a bolt of lightnin’ struck his guitar and splintered it to bits. My dog started to barking, the forest caught on fire, and we had to run out of there. When I got back to the shack where I’d been raised, the shack was burning too. I was scared Mama and Daddy and my sisters and brothers were inside getting burned up, but when I turned around, they were clapping for me like I had done something great. That’s when I realized I was holding a guitar and playing for my family. The fire had gone out. The storm had passed.

“Keep playing, Buddy,” my mama told me in that dream. “Keep on playing.”

The Day I Left Home

September 25, 1957

I think of this date like my birthday. Fact of the matter is it’s my second birthday. It’s when I was born again. Born this time not to stay in Louisiana, but to leave Louisiana. My life before September 25, 1957, was one thing, and my life after was something else.

I had said my goodbyes and asked Bob, Annie Mae’s husband, to drive me down to Hammond, the first train stop north of New Orleans. All I had was a suitcase with a few clothes, my reel-to-reel tape with the song I cut at WXOK, and my Les Paul Gibson guitar.

“You don’t got no heavy coat?” asked Bob, looking at the thin trench coat I was carrying.

“This is it,” I said.

“You gonna freeze to death.”

“I’ll be alright,” I said.

“You got not idea, boy, what’s waiting for you up there.”

“Ain’t nobody waiting,” I said. “That’s what worries me.”

“Don’t you got Shorty’s address?”

“That’s all I got.”

“Well, Shorty’s okay. He’ll see right by you. And then you saved some money, didn’t you?”

“Hope I saved enough.” In my pocket, hugging my thigh, was $600. Took me two years to get that money together.

BOOK: When I Left Home

13.35Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub