The World Don't Owe Me Nothing: The Life and Times of Delta Bluesman Honeyboy Edwards - Softcover

Edwards, David Honeyboy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1556523688 ISBN 13: 9781556523687

Publisher: Chicago Review Press, 2000

Synopsis

This vivid oral snapshot of an America that planted the blues is full of rhythmic grace. From the son of a sharecropper to an itinerant bluesman, Honeyboy’s stories of good friends Charlie Patton, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter Jacobs, and Robert Johnson are a godsend to blues fans. History buffs will marvel at his unique perspective and firsthand accounts of the 1927 Mississippi River flood, vagrancy laws, makeshift courts in the back of seed stores, plantation life, and the Depression.

About this title

About the Author:

David Honeyboy Edwards has been traveling and performing for over 67 years. Already in the Blues Hall of Fame, he was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Robert Was Crazy About Women And Crazy About His Whiskey. I met Robert Johnson in Greenwood in 1937, in the fall. He was traveling around through the country all the time by himself, playing country dances all through them little Delta towns like Indianola, Leland, on over to Greenwood. He was hustling. He had made a few little records, and more probably the quarters and nickels and dimes was easier for him to make because he had a little something on wax. His songs was on the jukeboxes and everyone was listening to them for a nickel a crack. When I first met him he was on Johnson Street near Main in Greenwood, playing right back on the alley. He was right outside of Emma Collinssshe kept a good-timing house and used to sell whiskey, too. He was standing on a block and had a crowd of people back in the alley ganging around him. But they didnt know who he was! I didnt know at first either, and when I first walked up I thought he was sounding a little like Kokomo Arnold. I walked up with my little old guitar, put mine on back and started listening. He was playing the blues so good. One woman, she was full of that old corn whiskey, she said, Mister, you play me Terraplane Blues! She didnt know she was talking to the man who made it! She said, If you play me Terraplane Blues Ill give you a dime! He said, Miss, thats my number. Well, you play it then. He started playing and they knew who he was then. He was playing and trembling and hollering. It was a little after noon and the people was coming out of the country, coming to town. He had the street blocked with people listening to him play. He was dressed nice, wearing a brown hat. He wore a hat most of the time, broke down over that bad eye. I got acquainted with him when he finished playing. We started talking and I found out he was from around Robinsonville, had just been through Tunica. I asked him did he know my cousin there, Willie Mae Powell, and he said Thats my girlfriend! And I said Thats my first cousin! So we started to laughing, chatting it up a little bit and we kind of hooked up and started drinking and hanging around together. Thats how I got attached with him. I met him and found out he was going with my cousin.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chicago Review Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1556523688
• ISBN 13: 9781556523687
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304