Honeyboy Edwards: 'The World Don't Owe Me Nothing'

I've finally finished reading bluesman David "Honeyboy" Edwards' 1997 autobiography, "The World Don't Owe Me Nothing" (I know it's 11 years later. What can i say -- there were a lot of words.)

It's Edwards' story, as he told it to Janis Martinson and Michael Robert Frank, in many, many hours of recorded interviews, and the writing is as much in Edwards' voice as possible. Martinson is an author, and Frank is Edwards long-time manager and the owner of the historically bluesy Earwig record label.

One of the amazing things about this is that Edwards was in his early 80s during this project (and still performing), and his memory for the events of his life reaching back into his childhood are amazing.

The other amazing thing about this book is Honeyboy's life. Times were tough when he was born in Shaw, Miss., 93 years ago, and pretty much went downhill from there for many years, through the Depression of the 1930s. Through it all, Edwards learned and played the Delta blues, collecting styles and songs and memories that go deep into blues history with Charlie Patton, Big Walter, Little Walter and Robert Johnson, and many other of the blues' founding fathers and sons, all of whom are gone, except for him.

He tells of a hell-rasing young life, playing his guitar on street corners and in jukes, hoboing, hitchhiking and riding the rails in times when a pallet on the floor would have seemed like a bed at the Ritz.

Living a life that most of us would have a hard time imagining, let alone surviving, Edwards seemed to be able to maintain a sense of humor, dignity and humility -- thus the title: "The world don't owe me nothing."

Here are a couple of sentences that catch that feeling from early in his life in Memphis with Roosevely Sykes and Memphis Slim:

We'd come in late at night, come off the streets around midnight and them dives stayed open till three in the morning. Women would be sitting all on top of the damn piano, drinking white whiskey. We'd just get drunk then, try to get us a woman to carry home wih us. It was plenty of fun. My God, the world don't owe me nothing!

I'm sorry it took me so long to get to this fine little book. It's full of vivid stories, all ripe with blues history and the blues life of those years that no one else is around to talk about. Or play the music. It's a continuing tribute that this great bluesman is still performing, still sharing his gift, still enriching our lives.

If you've never read it, and you consider yourself a blues fan, you should. Maybe even if you aren't a blues fan.

You'll find one of my photos of Honeyboy from a performance last year just to the left. And here's a 2007 perfomance from YouTube. (That's Michael Frank playing the harp.)

A BlueNotes personal update

It's true, as a commenter noted a couple days ago, that this week I joined the ranks of a couple dozen people at the Post-Gazette taking a buyout and leaving the company. The PG has been kind enough to recognize that BlueNotes still hasn't run out of blues to write about, so they will continue to host the blog. Thanks, and a tip of the mug from BeerNotes to them, and to you for hanging around and continuing to read.