When I Left Home (26 page)
Authors: Buddy Guy
One incident still burns into my brain. Happened after I had bought a cherry-red El Dorado with a white canvas top. I looked at the Caddie like a beautiful woman—curvy and sexy as hell. Couldn’t wait to get in it and drive. Everyone who knew me saw me riding in my El Dorado, proud as I could be.
Well, one night, a month or so after I’d bought the car, I was up in the bed asleep when something told me to open my eyes. I woke up just in time to keep my wife from stabbing me with a letter opener. I got it away from her, so no harm was done, but of course I had to know why she was crazy mad.
“I don’t need to tell you,” she said. “You can tell me.”
“I would if I could,” I said. “But I can’t. I honestly don’t know.”
“Bullshit. You got guilt written all over your face.”
She stormed out, and I still didn’t know. For a week she gave me the cold shoulder. Wouldn’t say a word. Finally, we got into it.
“Last Tuesday,” she said, “two different girlfriends of mine saw you in Hyde Park riding ’round with some white woman.”
“Not me they didn’t.”
“You got a cherry-red El Dorado with a white canvas top?”
“You know I do.”
“Well, a black man in a car that exact model and color was all over this white woman in Hyde Park.”
“Wasn’t me.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“How can you prove it wasn’t you?” she asked.
“How can you prove it was?”
“You playing with me.”
About then our daughter Charlotte, who was eleven, spoke up. “Last Tuesday Daddy came home early and went to sleep. I remember’cause I was doing my homework.”
“When I drove by the house I didn’t see his car,” said Joan.
“That’s ’cause he parked it out back in the garage,” said Charlotte. “He said he didn’t want no one knowing he was home so he wouldn’t be disturbed.”
Joan wanted to double-check, so she went looking for that car. She discovered that Caddie—the one just like mine—in Hyde Park. She realized I was telling the truth. I waited for the apology.
I’m still waiting.
I don’t want to sound like I’m saying I was perfect in our marriage—not nearly. On the road I fell to female temptation. But whatever I did, I tried to be discreet—I would never embarrass or humiliate the mother of my children.
When it became clear, though, that our relationship was in the dumpster, I found my pleasures elsewhere. I went through a period when I enjoyed many women. I played around. Turned out, though, running around wasn’t my style. Might be fun for a while, but I wanted to settle back down. After Joan and I divorced I was on the lookout for a wife. I guess I always remembered the happiness of Mama and Daddy. That’s the kind of trust and love I wanted with a woman.
I also wanted something else—a blues club of my own.
Checkerboard
Not long ago a friend said to me, “Buddy, I know why you had to have your own blues club.”
“Why’s that?” I asked. I knew, but I wanted to see if he knew.
“Because that’s your church, man. That’s where you first got religion when you came to Chicago. You got baptized in these funky blues clubs, you got born again, and you can’t forget it. When you got worried to see all these churches disappearing, you had to get one for yourself.”
That wasn’t the answer I expected, but damn if it didn’t make sense. I guess I did see the Chicago blues club as something sacred to my heart. Sure, there was drinking and shooting, but it gave me a beautiful feeling like nothing else. It brought a spirit that got all over my soul—and that’s something I never wanted to lose.
In 1972 I was thinking that if I had my own club, I might get off the road more. I’d be able to be closer to my kids and, if I played my cards right, might make some money.
I bought the Checkerboard, at 423 East 43rd Street, at a time when prices were low. That’s because the hood was going down. Far as I was concerned, though, the hood was always going down. I figured good blues would draw drinkers. Besides that, Pepper’s, one of the most famous clubs, had closed down. I hated that the South Side wouldn’t have no blues. On the bright side I figured that, what with my work at the F&J in Gary and the club I managed in Joliet, I had good experience. But man, did I have a lot to learn!
Before I opened up a cat said to me, “Buddy, I got only one piece of advice: get a rollaway bed, a gun, and sleep by the register.”
I got the gun, but—at least at first—I didn’t get the rollaway bed.
First year I got robbed so much that I put up security gates. But the motherfuckers just screwed ’em off and got in anyway. Cost me a hundred to put the gates back up. Then the thieves came back and removed ’em like they was nothing. It was costing me more to put up the gates than what the robbers took.
That’s what got me to put up a sign that said, “Don’t break the front gate. Go around back. The door’s open there. Take what you want.”
Of course, I was in the back, waiting for them with a gun. But wouldn’t you know that’s when they stopped breaking in.
I was selling beer for 35 cents and serving open whiskey only. That meant I’d buy the booze by the half-gallon and pour shots. Thieves couldn’t resell open bottles. They were looking to steal whiskey by the case. I learned to keep the stockroom empty.
Folks thought my famous friends would play the Checkerboard and make me a mint. Didn’t work that way. For example, the most famous thing that happened at the club, with our capacity of sixty-five, was when the Stones came to film and play with Muddy. They blocked the whole street, keeping out the regular customers, while the Stones’s huge entourage of cameramen, engineers, security guards, and friends filled up the place. It was beautiful to see Muddy and the Stones jamming together—turned out to be one of the last things Muddy did—but I didn’t hear my cash register ring once.
The Checkerboard was a spiritual blessing but a financial burden. I never broke even and had to use the money I made on the road to keep the doors open. No matter what, I kept the doors open because, as the seventies got disco crazy, the life of the blues was on the line.
Mud in the Burbs
Had to be around 1973 when I went to visit Muddy in Westmont, way out there in the white suburbs, some twenty miles outside the city. He had bought himself a house—nothing fancy, but clean and neat with a little swimming pool in back.
Muddy had been through a lot of changes, the worst being the recent death of his wife Geneva to the cancer. Her passing shook him and, in a strange way, freed him. The Mud had a lot of children from different women, and with Geneva’s passing, he got to move them all into his house. He got to be the daddy and granddaddy that he always wanted to be. Wasn’t that he didn’t love Geneva—he loved the woman with all his heart—but his love life had kept him running this way and that.
When I first came to his house, it was winter. Because it wasn’t baseball season, the TV wasn’t on. On doctor’s orders, the Mud had switched from hard liquor to champagne, and on that day we shared a bottle.
He was happy to see me and asked how things were going at the Checkerboard.
“Going slow, Muddy,” I said. “But I ain’t quitting.”
“Hey, man,” he said, “I thought of quitting after
Electric Mud,
but I didn’t.”
Electric Mud,
but I didn’t.”
Muddy was talking about the album he’d done with Marshall Chess that brought him a good piece of the hippie market.
“I thought
Electric Mud
sold a ton of records,” I said.
Electric Mud
sold a ton of records,” I said.
“It did. But that psychedelic shit drove me up a wall. Worst part was when I got to the show, they wanted me to play it live—and I couldn’t. What’s the point of making a record when you can’t even play it with your own band?”
“But you liked that thing you did with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield, didn’t you?” I asked, talking about
Fathers and Sons,
a record I loved.
Fathers and Sons,
a record I loved.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “That was a more natural thing. Those really are my sons. I raised them boys. After that, though, the shit storm hit hard. Leonard sold Chess.”
“They say he got ten million dollars.”
“Whatever he got, I didn’t get a nickel.”
“And then Leonard up and died,” I said.
“Heart attack—went just like that.”
“How old was Leonard, Muddy?”
“Young man, early fifties.”
“Is Phil treating you any better?” I asked. Phil was Leonard’s brother. “I get little checks now and then. Enough to pay the bills and move me out here.”
Couldn’t have been much more than a week after that Leonard died that Muddy and his band were in a terrible car accident in Illinois. Three people were killed, including Muddy’s driver. Muddy escaped with his life, but his ribs and pelvis got broken, and his hips and back got smashed up. He had surgery that took hours, and he couldn’t leave the hospital for months. When he did, he came out walking with a cane. Muddy being Muddy, he picked up his guitar and went back to work. After the
London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions
started to sell—that’s the record Wolf cut with Clapton, Steve Winwood, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts—Chess had Muddy fly to London to do the same kind of thing. I remember Muddy saying, “Those English rock-and-roll cats can play, but they look at me like I done created the world in seven days. They sitting around waiting to see what I wanna play. ‘You tell me what
you
motherfuckers wanna play,’ I said. ‘Let’s just play and get paid.’”
London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions
started to sell—that’s the record Wolf cut with Clapton, Steve Winwood, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts—Chess had Muddy fly to London to do the same kind of thing. I remember Muddy saying, “Those English rock-and-roll cats can play, but they look at me like I done created the world in seven days. They sitting around waiting to see what I wanna play. ‘You tell me what
you
motherfuckers wanna play,’ I said. ‘Let’s just play and get paid.’”
That was a couple of years ago. Now Muddy, grieving for the loss of Geneva, was still looking to get paid. We all were.
“Think you’ll like it out here?” I asked. “Think you’re ever gonna miss the old neighborhood?”
“I can ride down there whenever I want. Besides, you’re taking care of it, ain’t you?”
“Who’s taking care of your old house on South Lake Park?”
“I rented it to Big Eyes.”
Big Eyes was Willie Smith, one of Muddy’s drummers.
“So you holding on to it, Muddy,” I said.
“I figure I best. If I can’t pay the note on this motherfucker out here, I can always move back.”
Not too long after seeing Muddy I got to catch up with the Wolf. That happened because of the Rolling Stones. They was coming to Chicago for one of their big concerts and sent a limo for me and the Wolf. The plan was to come to their hotel room and then to the show. I was always glad to see Keith and them, but I was especially happy to see the Wolf. Been some time since I’d run into him. At this point he was in his mid-sixties and feeling his age. He’d taken a couple of bad heart attacks. Like Muddy, he’d been in a bad car wreck. His kidneys were fucked up until he was on dialysis. He was walking with a cane, but don’t you know he was talking shit just like he always did. And just like I always did, I listened to him like a little child listening to his daddy.
“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.”
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.’”
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