When I left home: my story (2015)

After I Left Home

Alpine Valley

I didn’t have no real record deal in the eighties, but thanks to the younger cats like Robert Cray and the Vaughan Brothers, and thanks to Clifford Antone turning Austin into a capital of the blues, I got more gigs. Asia and Europe were calling on a regular basis. The venues were bigger, and the fans demanded repeat performances. It was great, but I can’t say it was all good.

One time I was paid good money to open for AC/DC. Their fans, though, weren’t my fans. When I got out there, I was smacked with a chorus of loud boos. I felt bad—not for myself but for the people who’d paid to hear heavy metal hard rock, not electric blues. I wanted to tell them that I understood their disappointment, but I kept quiet and played my set, acting like the boos were really cheers.

In 1985, no matter how much I loved my club, the Checkerboard was a drain. It drank up money like a drunk drinking up whiskey. The area was crumbling, and I was tired of using my road money to pay for the losses. Even with all those headaches, I would have stayed except for the landlord pulling some underhanded moves to get rid of me. Because I was the one who kept the blues in the hood, the landlord’s attitude got me mad. But rather than fight, I up and left. I promised myself that as soon as I could find a good property, I’d invest in another club.

That happened in 1989, when I was finally making good money gigging over the world. One of the reasons the Checkerboard never turned a profit was ’cause people from the outside got tired of their cars getting stolen when they came to the South Side. I started looking around an up-and-coming neighborhood they was calling the South Loop, just beyond the big stores on Michigan and State but close to the lake. I found me a spot at 754 South Wabash. I liked it because it was near the huge Hilton Hotel where conventioneers stayed year round. Conventioneers like to party on blues. They could walk from the Hilton to my place in just a few minutes. It was bigger and cleaner than the Checkerboard, and I was all set to name it the Dew Drop Inn, after the famous Dew Drop Inn in New Orleans where Guitar Slim played. My lawyer, though, said there were legal problems with that name, so I’d better come up with another. I settled on Legends because I was dedicating the club to all the legends—Muddy, Walter, Wolf, Sonny Boy, John Lee, B. B., and all the others—who had schooled me.

The location proved good, and business was much improved from what I’d been experiencing. It’s hard to be too unhappy when you’re making money. I was feeling good.

I was feeling even better when Eric invited me over to London for his Prince Albert Hall concerts. That’s when I got to be good friends with the great piano man Johnny Johnson.

Johnny was famous for playing with Chuck Berry. He’s the Johnny of “Johnny B. Goode.” I never met him before, so when I got to my hotel and saw a note from him saying he wanted to have breakfast the next morning, I was excited.

At 8 a.m. I heard a tap on my door. I opened it and saw Johnny.

“You get my note?” he asked.

“I was just fixing to meet you at the breakfast restaurant,” I said.

He pointed to an attaché case he was carrying and said, “I got our breakfast right here.”

He opened up the case and brought out a bottle of Crown Royal.

“Any objections?” he asked.

“Johnny,” I said, “I’m so happy to meet you that I’ll go along with any kind of breakfast you want.”

As we drank, he started telling me how “Johnny B. Goode” was something he wrote with Chuck. He said he was a writer on almost all of Chuck’s hits.

“I came up with the rhythms and the music,” he said, “and Chuck wrote the words. Back then I thought whoever wrote the words wrote the song but later came to learn that the music is worth half. Tried to make some kind of deal with Chuck, but Chuck wouldn’t talk. ‘I wrote, “Roll Over Beethoven,” Chuck said to me. ‘That was my idea.’ ‘Yes,’ I said to him, ‘but that was the only lyrics.’ ‘The lyrics,’ said Chuck, ‘sold the song.’”

Took Johnny a while, but he did sue Chuck, though by then too much time had passed and I don’t think he got any money. I was able to give him money, though, for appearing at Legends several times. I also got to play with him, and although no one could ever match Otis Spann, when it came to the keys, you didn’t wanna fuck with Johnny Johnson.

In August of 1990 Clapton called and said he was coming to Chicago, where him, the Vaughan Brothers, and Robert Cray were playing an outdoor concert in Alpine Valley, a ski resort in Wisconsin eighty miles outside Chicago. I wasn’t on the bill, but Eric wanted me to come along to jam.

I knew Eric had given up drinking and drugging a long time before this, and he told me that Stevie and Jimmie had also stopped. Everyone was in great shape. To celebrate I was cooking a giant gumbo at Legends the day after the concert.

On the way to Alpine Valley Eric said to me, “Hey, Buddy, haven’t heard a record from you in a while.”

“That’s ’cause I don’t have a deal.”

“That’s crazy. I’ve copied all your old licks. How am I going learn your new licks if you don’t have a new record?”

I had to laugh.

“I’m going to take you into the studio myself,” said Eric.

“Anytime, baby, any place.”

When we got to the venue, it was like old homecoming week. Stevie and Jimmie were healthy and happy. Hadn’t seen Stevie since July of last year, when he came to Legends to join me on my birthday. Jimmie told me how he’d quit the Fabulous Thunderbirds to make this tour with his baby brother—first time they’d ever toured together. On stage Jimmie would put his arms around Stevie while they played on the same guitar. It was a beautiful thing to see.

Stevie’s set was blazing hot. He did everything but jump on his guitar and ride it to the moon. When he played my song “Leave My Girl Alone,” he looked at me in the wings and winked. I appreciated that. Never heard Stevie wail so hard. I got goose bumps. I felt proud. Just like Muddy had felt he had raised me, I felt like Stevie was my boy.

“How the hell am I going follow this?” asked Eric, who was standing next to me and waiting to go on.

“All you can do is try,” I said.

Eric had no problems. He was the star of the show, and the crowd loved him. I do believe that, pound for pound, Eric Clapton is the most popular man to ever pick up a guitar.

After his set he brought me out, and all of us—Jimmie, Stevie, Robert Cray, and Eric—jammed on “Sweet Home Chicago.” Whenever I’m around, Eric always calls that tune. We wore it out, and the fans went home smiling. Backstage, with everyone glowing, Eric talked about how we’d be together again at his concerts at the Royal Alpert Hall in London. He was gonna bring us all in.

To avoid the mess of traffic, helicopters were flying us all back to Chicago. Stevie was eager to get back, so he got the last seat on the first chopper. I went up in one with Eric and Eric’s manager. The fog was coming in, and that made me a little uneasy, but I figured that ’cause choppers went straight up, we’d be above the fog in no time. We were.

Landed at Midway, where I said goodnight to Eric and reminded him that I was cooking a gumbo and the whole gang was invited.

“You can’t really cook, Buddy, can you?” he asked.

“You’ll see for yourself. This thing is gonna be so bad it’ll hurt your mouth.”

We hugged and went our separate ways.

Went to sleep and, as usual, got up early in the morning. I was off to buy shellfish for the gumbo. It was gonna be an all-day creation.

First call I got was one of my daughters.

“Daddy, daddy!” she was screaming all hysterical. “Are you dead?”

“What you talkin’ ’bout, girl? How could I be dead if I’m talking to you?”

“They said you were on a helicopter that crashed last night.”

“No helicopter crashed last night.”‘

“That’s not what they’re saying on the news.”

“What they saying?”

“People were killed.”

“Which people?”

“I don’t know.”

Next call I got came from someone who had the facts.

“Been a terrible accident,” he said.

“Everyone alright?”

“No. Stevie’s dead.”

Stevie’s dead. Those words didn’t make no sense. I was sure I heard ’em wrong.

“Say again,” I said.

“Stevie’s dead.”

“Stevie Ray Vaughan?”

“The chopper carrying Stevie and three guys from Eric’s team backed into the side of a hill after takeoff. Them and the pilot were killed on impact.”

I just flopped. I crumbled. I couldn’t say or do nothing.

Stevie’s dead.

With the rest of the world, I cried for Stevie. He was a shining star that fell out the sky just when his star was on the rise. Wasn’t no reason for it except for something my folks always said: “When your time’s up, ain’t nothing you can do.”

Day of his funeral I had booked a big gig with Carlos Santana at Legends. Me and him was playing together, and the place had been sold out for months. I asked Carlos what he wanted to do.

A spiritual cat, Carlos said, “I don’t think it’s about what I want to do, Buddy. I think it’s about what Stevie would want us to do.”

“Stevie would want us to play the blues,” I said.

And that’s what we did, dedicating the night to him. We played our hearts out, but our heads weren’t right. When it comes to thinking how we lost Stevie, my head still isn’t right.

Wasn’t until I played with Eric at Prince Albert Hall that I saw Jimmie again. That was 1991. Was the first time Jimmie played in public since his baby brother had passed. When we jammed together, I think Jimmie was able to grieve the best way a musician knows how. That’s when we let the music carry our tears.

After one of the concerts at Prince Albert Hall a man introduced himself to me as Andrew Lauder. Said he was the boss at Silvertone Records. Turned out that Silvertone was in London, but they was owned by Sony. Was I willing to sign with Silvertone?

Was I willing?

Hell, more than willing, I’d been waiting for this chance for years. I guess you’d have to call Chess a major label in the blues, but they never paid nobody major money—and besides, they never knew what to do with me. I did some things for Bob Koester’s Delmark, but that was a tiny company. Vanguard was bigger, but they just wanted the Chess sound.

“You can sound any way you wanna, Buddy,” said Lauder. “I believe you’ve been under-recorded and recorded wrong. We want to bring out your fire.”

“Let’s do it,” I said.

“It’ll help to bring in a producer.”

“Who you got in mind?”

“Do you know John Porter?”

“No.”

“Do you know Roxy Music?”

“Just the name, not the music.”

“Well, John was their bass player for a while, and then their producer.”

“He English?” I said.

“Yes. Does that count against him?”

“No, that counts for him. Jimi Hendrix didn’t have no hits till he came to England. I’m seeing England as good luck.”

“We’re seeing you, Buddy, as one of our most important artists.”

“I’m seeing you, Andrew,” I said, “as a godsend.”

John Porter was cool. At the session in London he dropped “Mustang Sally” in my lap, but I didn’t mind because it’s a strong song and I love me some rhythm and blues. Also loved that John worked hard to let me sound the way I sound live. He also didn’t mind me cutting four of my own songs. One of them became real important. Happened ’cause I was trying to shoot pool before the recording session. Cat was joking around when he said to me, “Well, you can’t play pool, but can you play the blues?” My answer was “Damn right, I can play the blues.” That sparked an idea for a song: “Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues.” Turned into the album title and the biggest hit of my career.

Jeff Beck dropped by to play on a couple of tracks, and Clapton played on one. The pieces fell into place. If you listen to the album right, what you hear is a man used to wearing handcuffs flying free as a bird. And if you ask me my favorite track, I’ll tell you this story:

I wanted to honor Stevie. I thought about playing one of his songs, but that didn’t seem right. They was his tunes, not mine. Then I thought about writing a new song for him with words to express my love. But the words wouldn’t come. So I decided to do something different. I went to the studio, told them to cut off the lights, and just started playing.

“What are you doing?” the producer asked.

“Rememberin’ Stevie,” I said.

“Rememberin’ Stevie” became the name of the song.

While I was playing, my mind went back to Alpine Valley. That was such a beautiful night. After Stevie came off stage I was sitting in a corner fooling with my guitar while Eric started his set. Stevie came over to listen to what I was doing.

“Buddy,” he said, “you slay me with your licks.”

“After that what you done played out there you can’t stay nothing to me. You slayed everybody. I’m still recovering.”

“Know what, Buddy? We got to make a record. We got to do something together.”

“I’m ready, Stevie. I been ready.”

“It’s gonna happen. It’s got to.”

Rememberin’ Stevie, I thought that if it did happen, it was gonna happen in blues heaven. I pictured the band—Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Fred Below, Little Walter, Stevie Ray Vaughan. That’s a band worth dying for.