PUBLISHED by the
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS:
“Billy Boy Arnold’s great Vee Jay sides were a big influence on me when I was first starting out. The first two singles I ever played on were covers of Billy Boy Arnold tunes that I recorded with the Yardbirds. I’m very happy to see Billy Boy Arnold’s amazing personal story finally told in print.”—Eric Clapton
REVIEWS
“No one has lived the Chicago blues like Billy Boy Arnold, and no one has more stories. This book is a journey through eighty years of history with an incredible supporting cast and a particularly charming and observant guide, who saw it all and is still making wonderful music.”—Elijah Wald, Grammy Award winner, musician and author
“The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold is in every respect not just excellent but exemplary: a blues autobiography to be reckoned with. Arnold—by dint of his unusually long career, his exceptionally detailed memory, and his many friendships with key figures on the scene—is the only one who can tell us this particular story. His shrewd, candid appraisals of his peers, leavened with quirky detail, add significantly to our understanding of postwar Chicago blues.”—Adam Gussow, musician and author
"Harmonica legend Billy Boy Arnold (b. 1935), one of the last surviving musicians of the 1950s Chicago blues explosion era, has penned a lively, illuminating memoir, cowritten by Kim Field (Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers: The Evolution of the People’s Instrument). Arnold begins his story as a preteen who met his idol, the blues harmonica great John “Sonny Boy” Williamson, and became entranced with prewar Chicago blues. Arnold recounts the emergence of 1950s electric blues and offers intimate recollections of guitarists Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Otis Rush and harmonica players Rice Miller, Junior Wells, and Little Walter. He discusses his classic “I Wish You Would” (1955) and his influential role in helping Bo Diddley launch rock and roll. Arnold evenhandedly details the cutthroat blues business and vividly describes the South Side and West Side Chicago blues scene, including its inherent racism. He explains that in the mid-1960s the blues hub moved to more lucrative clubs in North Chicago, and blues audiences (once primarily Black) became whiter. The memoir also covers recent recordings and international tours. VERDICT Arnold’s heartfelt, honest, insider’s view of Chicago blues from the 1940s onward will be essential to anyone interested in blues and the origins of rock and roll."—The Library Journal
* * *
Billy Boy Arnold is the only musician alive today who has lived the entire history of the Chicago blues scene. The blues, the most majestic music about the human condition ever created, deserves an eloquent spokesperson from within the ranks of its creators. The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold is that inside story, told in Billy Boy’s own words.
At age 85, Billy Boy Arnold is in his eighth decade as a bluesman and is still active as a performer. In 1947, as a twelve-year-old blues harmonica player, he sought out the first Chicago-based blues harmonica genius, John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, and took lessons from him. Arnold made his first record as a teenager, played harmonica on Bo Diddley’s legendary first recording session for the legendary Chess label, and scored several blues hits of his own in the 1950s. His original songs have been covered by Eric Clapton, David Bowie, Tom Jones, The Blues Brothers, Aerosmith, and Canned Heat, among others.
The publication of The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold is a notable event not only because of Billy Boy’s longevity, but because of the remarkable scope of his personal and professional experiences. Billy Boy was a key participant in no fewer than five major events in the history of American popular music: the creation of the Chicago blues style, the birth of rock and roll, the arrival of white musicians on the Chicago blues scene, the appropriation of the Chicago blues sound by the “British invasion” bands, and the crossover of the blues to a white audience.
In The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold, Billy Boy offers up-close-and-personal reminiscences of literally every luminary in the history of of Chicago blues, including John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, Big Bill Broonzy, Tampa Red, Memphis Minnie, Blind John Davis, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, Junior Wells, Rice Miller, Otis Spann, Jimmy Rogers, Earl Hooker, Johnny Shines, and James Cotton.
The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold is richly illustrated with 58 photographs, many from Billy Boy’s personal collection. The book also includes maps of the South and West Sides of Chicago as they were in the heyday of the blues scene in the 1950s and ‘60s showing the locations of the events and places recounted by Billy Boy.
“What I’ve said in this book is authentic and exactly the way it went down,” says Billy Boy. “If I say I did somethin’, I did it. If I didn’t do it, it’s not in here. I didn’t put nothin’ in this story to make me look better or anyone else look worse. That ain’t what I’m about. I like the real deal. I remember everything ’cause this is very important stuff to me.”
Billy Boy Arnold and Kim Field (photo by Dick Shurman)
Click here to order your copy
of “The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold.”