Feel Like Going Home

by Peter Guralnick

This vivid celebration of blues and early rock 'n' roll includes some of the first and most illuminating profiles of such blues masters as Muddy Waters, Skip James, and Howlin' Wolf; excursions into the blues-based Memphis rock 'n' roll of Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich, and the Sun record label; and a brilliant depiction of the bustling Chicago blues scene and the legendary Chess record label in its final days. With unique insight and unparalleled access, Peter Guralnick brings to life the people, the songs, and the performance that forever changed not only the American music scene but America itself.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, Essays, History, Music Biography

273 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Peter Guralnick is an acclaimed American music critic, author, and screenwriter best known for his deeply researched works on the history of rock and roll. He earned a master’s degree in creative writing from Boston University and soon began writing about blues, country, soul, and early rock music. His two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love, is considered a definitive account of the singer’s life. Guralnick also authored landmark biographies of Sam Cooke and Sam Phillips, earning praise from critics and musicians alike. He has written liner notes for legends like Jerry Lee Lewis and Charlie Rich, winning a Grammy for his notes on Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club. His documentary scripts include Sam Cooke – Legend and Feel Like Going Home, directed by Martin Scorsese. Guralnick’s writing stands apart for its straightforward, unembellished style, earning him a reputation as one of rock’s most respected storytellers. He has taught at Vanderbilt University since 2005 and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2010. His recent works include Looking to Get Lost and a forthcoming biography of Colonel Tom Parker. Guralnick lives with his wife, Alexandra, and their family. His extensive archive is housed at the University of North Carolina’s Wilson Library.

Reviews

[Neglectedbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of Peter Guralnick's earliest books, written back when he was telling us about well-known names like Howlin' Wolf and obscure musicians like Deford Bailey. He has such a genuine love of American roots music that he can convince a Muddy Waters fan to give Hank Snow and Charlie Rich a listen ... and vice versa. I have been a die-hard Charlie Rich fan for 25+ years now and it's due to Peter Guralnick. I used to think Rich was a hack ("Behind Closed Doors"). Now I think he's on a par with Ray Charles. When a writer can get you to love music that well through words alone ... well, that's a talent.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This took me a while to read, since I started it ages ago and then ditched it and then started back up where I left off. It was okay. It was a collection of essays that were quite old. I think they were from the seventies. It was interesting enough to give it three stars, but I cant really recommend it to anyone but the biggest blues (there is a section on Jerry Lee Lewis and Sun Records also) music nerds. There is a discography at the end that probably could have bumped this up a half of star, if there were 1/2 stars on here. I haven't gone in depth into the discography, but plan on doing so soon. So, pretty hit or miss, but all in all worth reading as there are some, for better or worse, intimate views of some of the legends.

[Jani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guralnick's book, the second I've read from him after the brilliant Sweet Soul Music, is an interesting look at a time past in two ways. First and foremost of course it is a book about the blues greats of the olden days, who at the time of book had already seen the heights of blues' mass popularity, at least from a distance. On the other hand, it is story written from a view point of the beginning of 1970s when these greats, for most parts, were still alive and kicking. Sadly, they are not anymore, creating the double tragedy behind the story, the sad blues playing in the background, if you will.

Guralnick writes as a fan, a fan that somewhat reluctantly has to meet his heroes. He approaches them with reverence and doesn't shy away from superlatives and praises. Yet he does not get carried away: he approaches his subjects with a critical eye. He questions their memories, tries to look behind the smoke and mirrors, and brings in a narrative that doesn't let these great men become just mythology. As a consequence, the tales told seem real; they are drenched in sweat, tears and, occasionally, laughter. This is a story, not a tall tale.

At best Guralnick pieces together a fascinating story of a music and its makers. However, this is a book for an aficionado, it is full people whom a person with only a passing knowledge of blues has never heard about and as such finds sometimes hard times staying interested in. On the other hand, this is one of the tragedies of the book that makes it sing so sorrowfully. If these artist where somewhat obscure in the beginning of the 1970s, they are infinitely more so now. Perhaps their music is available for download, but you need the name for the search first. Of course, this book provides them, and, while it will probably not prove as expensive reading as the aforementioned Guralnick, it will cause me to buy a few records I dare say; Guralnick is that good.

[Mat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great close-up look at the delta blues singers, who in my opinion, created some of the most haunting, beautiful and timeless music. Skip James came across as an arrogant so-and-so in the book but an amazing artist all the same. Muddy Waters came across as very cool in this book and Guralnick paints an accurate portrait of Waters as a man whose determination and talent lead him to become THE blues player at the forefront. Highly recommended for blues enthusiasts/aficionados. When I was holed up in a hospital in Osaka with a broken jaw, a great friend of mine brought this book to me, which helped me enormously because I was going out of my mind with boredom.

[Tim Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a series of essays by Guralnick about blues and early rock & roll artists. And as such it's a little hard to review. Less because of the format and more because the book is a product of its time. The book came out in 1971. So obviously Guralnick was interviewing the subjects well before that date. These were some of the first glimpses that the public would get into the likes of Skip James and Johnny Shines. The blues revival was over and the early days of rock & roll were long past. So Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf had been somewhat forgotten and Jerry Lee Lewis was a country troubadour rather than a one of the madmen of early rock. At a point in time when one was at the mercy of the radio, the odd article in a national magazine and what you could find at the local record store, this book would have been a revelation. In the age of Spotify, Wikipedia, Allmusic, etc. it has to depend on Guralnick's writing and ones general interest.

And Guralnick is a great writer. If he has a rival within blues writing it is probably only Robert Palmer. If he has a rival in early rock and its crossover with country it's...well it might not be anyone. Guralnick doesn't have the verbal ticks and self-reference that marks Nick Tosches work, for example. The problem here, at least for me, is that the portraits in this book probably aren't deep enough for my liking. I've already read more about Chess and Sun Records (and Guralnick has since written the definitive work about Sam Phillips). I've read more about Jerry Lee and can...and will...read more about Muddy and Wolf. That said, I'm not sure that I need that much more about Johnny Shines and I certainly don't need more about Robert Pete Williams.

The stand-outs here, for me, were the looks at Skip James and Charlie Rich. James probably because of the interesting place he sits in blues history. Barely recorded in the 20s and 30s...completely out of music until his rediscovery with the Blues Revival. His influence has grown since then. Guralnick's finds Rich just a couple of years before his career exploded in the 70s with his work with producer Billy Sherrill. Guralnick gets as deep a look into what made Rich tick and the tortured path of his career as I've seen. Rich never really got over wanting to be a jazz musician and it shows in his attempts at rock & roll with Sun and Smash and his countrypolitan sound of the 70s. Guralnick gets as much as you can expect out of a reticent interview like Rich.

There's a lot here to like. It just has to be what you're looking for. And this wasn't always what I was looking for. In that the fault lies in me..and not in Guralnick's writing or the tome itself.

[Byron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This kinda reads like the work of a music blogger operating 30 or 40 years before such a thing existed, but with a lot less irony poisoning, identity politics and what have you. Thank god. It's amazing to think how little we know about the artists from 50 to 60-plus years ago compared to the nonstop stream of information we receive about today's artists (if you can call them that), and I was struck by some of the similarities between ancient blues men and today's rappers.

[Frances · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love reading Peter Guralnick’s books on music. Written in early 70s, this one tells the story of some of the early blues artists. A very informative read.

[Robert H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Guralnick's Feeling Like Going Home introduces the reader to some of the legendary figures of blues and rock-n-roll. The excerpts of interviews with some of the key bluesmen of our time - Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Skip James were riveting. Guralnick wrote for Rolling Stone magazine so not surprisingly, each profile reads like a cover story. And while the words of the musicians from the interviews are compelling, the language Guralnick used to create the portraits seems somewhat dated, a kind of 70's academic speak that you might find in a well-researched ethnomusicology journal piece. The contrast illustrates the gap between the experience of the white audience and the lives of almost all of the musicians profiled. If you pick up this book, and I hope you will, but only had time or interest in reading one profile, go to Chapter 6 "Robert Pete Williams, Free Again". He's not the most celebrated bluesman, or one many have heard of - I hadn't heard of him, I confess. You won't find his work on many blues anthologies, although you can find a few of his albums on iTunes and Amazon. Here was a man who was unjustly jailed for defending himself, ultimately released, and lived in relative obscurity near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, performing only sporadically. His words are the essence of the blues. His guitar playing was unique as were his compositions. He was "rediscovered" in the '60s and invited to play at some big blues festivals and also performed for an audience at Harvard. This Chapter alone and the Afterword in which he is mentioned again is worth your time.

[Grant Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guralnick is one of my favourite music writers as he is so clearly a fan first and critic second. This 1971 masterpiece is a fascinating first hand perspective on many blues stars that history has now considers iconic. The intervening years have in some ways forgotten that they were real people; skip James, howlin wolf and Muddy Waters are 'The Blues' but their individual personalities, stories, ambitions and failures have been forgotten. They all shared many of the challenges that any human does even now. So it is riveting to read these interviews which, in part, made me reevaluate how blues was regarded and appreciated especially in these BLM times. In some ways not much has changed but in others it is a world that seems so long ago and yet the same human spirit is evident in today's world too.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heartfelt and intelligent at the same time, Guralnick writes with the tension of being both a critic and an enthusiast. These assembled portraits form a valuable documentation of an era. Guralnick wrote these at an interesting time, shortly after the original blues and rock 'n roll greats enjoyed a renaissance with the emerging folk and roots crowd. That era had just come to a close, sort of ending these musicians' second life. That second era, of course, has long since passed now. This music feels very much like History, and it's with a sense of melancholy that I still listen to some of these artists' records now.

[Will Lashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

An early collection of Peter Guralnick's musical portraits, published in 1971. I had never heard of Robert Pete Williams when I read it then, and it drove me to go out and listen to everything I could find by Skip James, so that alone was reason for celebration, but some of the chapters prefigure his future in-depth research and studies, especially Chapter 8 - Boppin' The Blues: Sam Phillips and the Sun Sound. Guralnick's admiration for his musical heroes shines through on every page.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part history lesson, part interview series, part critical appreciation, this classic volume is an affectionate and infectious celebration of American music traditions, particularly blues and early rock and roll. Enthusiastic though it is, it’s also sober-minded— about the hardships and failures that met our blues heroes, and about the limited viability of the blues as an ongoing prospect. Recommended for anyone who takes American art and music seriously.

[Corey J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a 3 1/2 star book only because for the first 40 or so pages I thought I had received the wrong Kindle file. It was 40 pages of ‘oh how good are Boomers? We invented Rock n Roll and we did everything else’. You do you boo, but I don’t need 40 pages of nostalgic drivel before I get to the profiles on true Blues legends.

Having said that, when Bobby Boomer shuts up and writes the profile, it’s a good read. Just skip the first 20% of the book.

[Roz · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable book that’s useful for its primary sources - interviews with long dead musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Johnny Shines and more. At the same time it’s also a little out of date, with details being supplanted (it suggests, for example, that no pictures of Robert Johnson survive) and the discography being well out of date. Still, if you’re looking for a history of the blues this one will do the trick - although I might suggest Robert Palmer’s Deep Blues in a pinch.

[Nicola Batecola · Rating 5 out of 5]

An early work by Elvis' most famous biographer, excellent as is his custom. His style is less matter-of-factly than it will be on his next few books, he describes with heart and soul his meetings with some of the preRNR blues greats, Jerry Lee Lewis, Marshall and Philip Chess, Charlie Rich... Smart and heartfelt, a must have for music fans.

[DoGG · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great Peter Guralnick book with many great profiles, including Muddy Waters, Skip James, Holwin' Wolf, Charlie Rich and also the Sun and Chess labels. He avoids cliches and brings the musicians and their music to life.

[Garrett Cash · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Guralnick is my favorite music writer, and it's been a fun journey reading through his first three books that form a trilogy of American roots music. This was his first book to my knowledge, and the fact that it was written 50 years ago gives it an added interest because of its closeness to the sources who are long gone. The book focuses on the blues, but also connects them to a couple of the earliest Sun Records rockabillies and their world. This seemed like the perfect book to kick of a series of books I'll be reading this year surrounding the subject of the blues, a study I've been wanting to do for at least a decade. There were profiles of artists in here I knew well that were fun to read like that of Muddy Waters, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Charlie Rich. There were also great introductions to the work of artists I didn't know like Johnny Shines and Robert Pete Williams.

If you're interested in American roots music at all, this book and the other two works in the series are essential reading I can't recommend enough. That discography section will keep you busy a long time by itself!

[Greg Talbot · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the course of doing this book I became aware of two things. First, that my enthusiasm fo rthe music continued unabated. And second, that I would have to stop writing about it - for while anyway - if I wanted it to remain so." (p.241).

We don't live in a world that can produce "the blues" anymore. The world of poverty, old time religion, racial segregation and spattering of gin mills across the South proliferated the amplified songs of old spirituals to new voices. Hardly about money, few of these artists lived to find an audience. Hardly about success, with the exception of Jerry Lee Lewis, none of these artists thought much of their own success. And for many of them their roads and lives feel as unscripted with only God and life's dice taking a roll on their fate.

Chapters are dedicated to artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Johnny Shines, Skip James, Jerry Lee Lewis and Charlie Rich. These are rough portraits, of men in the late stage of their career. Their reflections, and the world's reflection of them is taken into consideration. Muddy Waters, who seems to have had more commerical success than any other blues musician shares that blues was practically dead, there was nothing in Chicago (p.43). And you begin to see how short a window these men had in their careers, with a folk and British invasion hitting the shores by the early 1960s.

Gularick's writing is reverential but unglamorous. We get the stories of what it means to sing the blues. And with that are themes of authenticity, acceptence in different communities, and the struggles of balancing a passion and being commerically successful. You could imagine life being very different for Muddy Waters had he never gotten a guitar, or for Skip Jones if he never asked a rich socialite about a guitar she had. Very few of the artists did shows outside their immediate homes, having little time or financial backing to launch road tours.

One of the joys of course was to listen to the superb music of the times. There's nothing like hearing the bewitching posessed sound of Robert Johnson's landmar 1937 sessions, or the crackling passion of Howlin Wolf, the fiery zest of Jerry Lee Lewis or the amplified riffs of Muddy Waters, while listening to this. Understanding how these artists borrowed from each other, like Carl Perkins immortally song reworked by Elvis, "Blue Suede Shoes", shows just how undefined the industry was. Sun Records and Chess Records, both defunct now, vitally expanded the audience to the sounds of American blues and the beginning sounds of rock and roll.

So in many ways, the story is an American story. An era that is gone, and immortalized more from genration of rock bands (Cream, Rolling stones, White Stripes, Black Keys), and their timeless recordings. But of course, the music helped breakdown racial and cultural barriers (p.61). These musicians who left a mark on their era, and found themselves adrift from the music culture as we entered the social change of the sixities. Written in 1972, Guralnick's interviews reflect how deep that cultural change displaced the music of the WW2 generation. And it may be the ultimate reminder that all music is rooted in a time and place, it's up to us to keep it's fire glowing.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before I leave Tennessee, I'm reading (or re-reading, in this case) some of the classic books on Southern music. I figured it would make sense to start with Guralnick.

I last read Feel Like Going Home in 2001, right around this time of year, and loved it, but didn't immediately take the time to listen to much of the music under discussion. This time, I tried to make up for it -- not that I ever really need an excuse to listen to Charlie Rich or Jerry Lee Lewis. I also dipped into Howlin' Wolf's and Muddy Waters' records with more attention than usual, but the real find, if I can even call it that, was Skip James. His 1931 recordings for Paramount are otherworldly, spooky things, and a new favorite.

All in all, this is just such a fine collection of profiles, and Guralnick a writer of such measured prose, that I can't help being drawn to its subjects. The book was a pleasure to revisit.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book reads like a personal encyclopedia. The author went around collecting stories and interviews of musicians he cared about, wrote up an essay about each one, then filed them between two covers. Because it's Guralnick, it should be read. Some of the chapters, like the one for Robert Pete Williams, are really good. But for my mind the best part of the book was the opening chapter, which is one of my favorite essays on rock and roll-and-roll.

[Crowey]

Though originally published in 1971, so a little dated, this book gives a great "Cook's Tour" of the blues and some early rock and roll - touching on greats such as Charlie Patton, Son House, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Charlie Rich, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chess & Sun records. As such its a little lite on detail, but its a great introduction by an author who obviously loves the music and can really get it across in his prose. With those earlier caveats in mind, well worth buying.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant book, filled with deep portraits of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Pete Williams, Jerry Lee Lewis, Skip James, and Johnny Shines among others. Guralnick's wart and all love of the Blues makes for an engaging and moving reading experience, and the discography in the back reads like a master class.

[Lada Egolaeva · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful foray into the world of blues and rock'n'roll. The book includes interviews with and stories about legends such as Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins, Big Joe Williams etc. A must read for blues fans.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not up there with his best, but still pretty darn good

[Art Levine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A treasure of great writing, originally published as magazine articles, on early roots music and blues greats.

[Franck · Rating 5 out of 5]

un des meilleurs si ce n'est le meilleur livre sur la musique