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 At the same time it’s also a little out of date, with details being supplanted (it suggests, for example, that no pictures of Robert Johnson survive) and the discography being well out of date.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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.