When I Left Home

“A colorful account of [Guy’s] 50-year-long tenure as perhaps the most influential guitar slinger in Chicago blues.” —Los Angeles Times

According to Eric Clapton, John Mayer, and the late Stevie Ray Vaughn, Buddy Guy is the greatest blues guitarist of all time. An enormous influence on these musicians as well as Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, he is the living embodiment of Chicago blues.

Guy's epic story stands at the absolute nexus of modern blues. He came to Chicago from rural Louisiana in the fifties—the very moment when urban blues were electrifying our culture. He was a regular session player at Chess Records. Willie Dixon was his mentor. He was a sideman in the bands of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. He and Junior Wells formed a band of their own. In the sixties, he became a recording star in his own right.

When I Left Home tells Guy’s picaresque story in his own unique voice, that of a storyteller who remembers everything, including blues masters in their prime and the exploding, evolving culture of music that happened all around him.

“The book is funny, sad, tragic, lusty, honest, loving and insightful. Just like the blues. Just like Buddy Guy. If you love the blues and all that it means, you should love this book.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“When I Left Home: My Story is exactly what is promises to be: the recollections of a 74-year-old blues maestro who paid his dues, grew up poor, gigged a lot and rubbed elbows with some of the most remarkable musicians of his time . . . A compulsively readable book.” —PopMatters