Product Description

From sharecropper's son to itinerant bluesman, Honeyboy's life is like a distillation of the classic blues legends. Historians will delight in the firsthand accounts of his upbringing, the 1927 Mississippi River flood, plantation life, the racial problems and economics of southern blacks, and the Depression. "To watch Edwards play is to witness living history."--Chicago Sun-Times. 30 photos.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #569701 in Books
• Published on: 1997-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

From School Library Journal
YAAThis biography is a blend of music, history, and masterful storytelling. Edwards does not have any regrets about his 65 plus years as a traveling country-blues musician. Now 82, he lovingly describes community life and family events during this childhood. Arranged chronologically, the book transports readers back to the days of the Depression and the harsh realities of segregation. As a young musician, "Honeyboy" walked, hitchhiked, or hoboed to various destinations under the threat of vagrancy laws. He was arrested by white sheriffs or farmers and sent to the county farm or jail. He doesn't cover up the brutality that he experienced due to class and color. He spins tales of gambling, romance, and classic blues artists, both male and female. Finally he reflects on his God-given talent. He writes vividly of another time and place. Appendixes include brief biographical sketches on blues performers and their songs and Honeyboy's recordings. Black-and-white pictures depict the places and people he mentions. Honeyboy's passion for the blues and his strong recollections will absorb readers.AConnie Freeman, Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, IN
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Honeyboy Edwards is one of the last of the original practitioners of the acoustic Delta blues style. Born in 1915 to a sharecropping family in Mississippi, he received a secondhand Sears, Roebuck guitar at 14 and was on the road with Big Joe Williams within three years. His journey had him playing with every blues legend from Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters. Although his temper and his inability to stay in one place for long limited his recorded output, the tales he tells here confirm him as the archetypal bluesman making his way through life via women, music, and gambling. In addition to being a who's who of blues performers and an encyclopedia of blues styles, this book offers a seldom-seen look at the social mores of poor, rural, Southern African Americans from the Depression through World War II. Compiled over five years from interviews by Martinson and Frank, this is essential reading for anyone interested in the blues or African American life.?Dan Bogey, Clearfield Cty. P.L. Federation, Curwensville, Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Customer Reviews

A great American life
This autobiography succeeds memorably on several levels. Told in spare, moving words, it provides a vivid picture of life in the Mississippi Delta long before the civil rights movements of the '50s. In addition, it's a kind of African-American "On the Road," told from the perspective of one who crisscrossed the Southern United States, scuffling to make a living playing the blues. And finally, it's a terrific history of the blues, told by a man who made a significant musical contribution himself and who played with nearly all the essential artists of the '30s and on.

Edwards, born in the Delta around 1915, worked the fields as a kid before he learned to play the guitar and began hoboing around the South. He rode the rails, played in innumerable small towns, and polished his craft. Along the way, he hung out and played with the likes of Sunnyland Slim, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter Jacobs, Robert Junior Lockwood, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and yes, Robert Johnson. The book describes how these architects of the modern blues passed songs, licks, and stories back and forth, keeping a form that relies so heavily on tradition dynamic and vital.

A major strength of the book is Edwards' distinctive voice, transcribed by his collaborators to retain its distinctive rhythms and dialect. The book's title sums up his attitude. His memories include violent death, physical and emotional loss, and great material want. Still, you sense strongly that he wouldn't have had his life any other way. His narrative is devoid of self-pity, but it never glosses over the difficulty of the times he endured, which included stints in prison.

The book concludes with useful appendices that define key terms and offer capsule biographies and discographies of musicians Edwards encountered. A good bibliography is also included. Highly recommended for those interested in the blues and in American social history. Great read.

The memoir of a great Bluesman.
What a life! 82 years old Bluesman Honeyboy Edwards is one last Bluesmen alive that knew Robert Johnson but that is not the basis of the book. Edwards has lived a life that makes anyone really understand what the Blues is all about and other bluesmen back in the 1930's and 40's who shaped blues music.

Honeyboy's tales gives the reader his firsthand accounts of plantation life, the 1927 Mississippi River flood, vagrancy laws, makeshift courts, the racial problem and economics of southern blacks and the Depression.

This book came about because of the stories that Honeyboy told his manager of 25 years, Michael Robert Frank, who is also the founder of Earwig Records and Janis Martinson, a freelance writer. Martinson did the transcribing and left Honeyboy's speech patterns intact. My friend, Travis Brown is from Tennessee and after reading this book remarked that reading the words of Honeyboy took him back "home". Martinson also did the research and wrote the three appendices that appear in the back of the book. Want to find out what the "killin' floor" is (was) than buy this book.

Earwig has also issued a CD with the same title, I had that CD and Robert Johnson's in my changer while I read the book, they provided the perfect soundtrack to the theater of the mind.

Tony Houston, 1999

The Genuine Article
Honey and his astute collaborators have given us the genuine article: a poignant, detailed, uproarous chronicle of what Robert Palmer called the"Deep Blues," the Delta tradition from which all other blues styles emanate. If you've heard Honey sing either in person or on his fine recordings, you will hear the voice you read. He offers dozens of unforgettable moments, from the first sounds he ushers from a broken-necked guitar to his mother's death to the death of Robert Johnson, that are alive and chilling. My only criticism is that the photographs featured in the book are spartan, contemporary views of critical sites in this artist's life. More historical photography would have enhanced the text. The publisher of this well-designed softcover has made the text relaxingly readable. After my first 50 pages, I wanted to purchase all of Honey's recordings and read more about him. He is an articulate, funny, precise chronicler of his own life. If only I could do the same with my own life! First rate.