The frank, funny, and unforgettable autobiography of a living legend
of Chicago blues.
Simply put, Billy Boy Arnold is one of the last men standing from the
Chicago blues scene's raucous heyday. What's more, unlike most artists
in this electrifying melting pot, who were Southern transplants,
Arnold--a harmonica master who shared stages with Bo Diddley, Muddy
Waters, and Howlin' Wolf, plus a singer and hitmaker in his own right
who first recorded the standards "I Wish You Would" and "I Ain't Got
You"--was born right here and has lived nowhere else. This makes his
perspective on Chicago blues, its players, and its locales all the rarer
and all the more valuable. Arnold has witnessed musical generations come
and go, from the decline of prewar country blues to the birth of the
electric blues and the worldwide spread of rock and roll. Working here
in collaboration with writer and fellow musician Kim Field, he gets it
all down. The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold is a remarkably
clear-eyed testament to more than eighty years of musical love and
creation, from Arnold's adolescent quest to locate the legendary Sonny
Boy Williamson, the story of how he named Bo Diddley Bo Diddley, and the
ups and downs of his seven-decade recording career. Arnold's
tale--candidly told with humor, insight, and grit--is one that no fan of
modern American music can afford to miss.
