 The
World Don't Owe Me Nothing: David "Honeyboy" Edwards
(Chicago Review Press) 
With
each passing day the blues community seems to lose another star to “blues
heaven." Luther Allsion, Charles Brown, Mighty Joe Young,…. have all
passed recently. They have left us behind with their music, but not the history
behind it . That’s why David “Honeyboy” Edwards stories and tales gathered into
literary form that create the book “The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing” is essential
documentation of the trials and tribulations of a blues musician in the early
part of the 20th century.
David
“Honeyboy” Edwards or Honey as his friends call him, was born on June 28th
1915 outside Shaw, Mississippi. He was born during a time when the blues were in
its infancy and segregation had a strangle hold on the nation. A black man in
the South was valued for how much work could be pulled from him and little more.
Mostly to avoid chopping cotton, a tiring low paying manual labor job, many a
young man turned to entertaining to improve their living status. Singers, players,
and hustlers hoboed around the country earning a living on the nickels and dimes that were thrown
into the hat on every small town street corner in the South. Honeyboy was no exception.
At the age of sixteen Honeyboy hopped
on a freight train to Memphis to try to find a job, times were tough and jobs were
scarce. Finding the situation in Memphis not much better than back home Honeyboy
decided to head back. While hoboing on his way home he was caught by the local
sheriff, and served 90 days for stealing from the train company. It was
harvest time and labor needed to come from somewhere. He recounts surviving
this brush with death as it was yesterday.
In
1932 David set off hoboing again and befriended Big Joe Williams. Big Joe not
only teaches Honeyboy how to improve his guitar playing but also imparts his
knowledge on the ways of a traveling musician.
Things like, how to know when the all important pay day schedule was, how to
set up an evening performance, and most importantly, how to survive as a
hustler. From his lessons learned at the feet of Big Joe, Honeyboy went on the
road for the next 30 years applying his trade across the wide open country.
Along the way he partnered with some of the greats of the blues world.
Players
such as Little Walter, Sunnyland Slim, and Big Walter Horton all spent time on
the road with Honeyboy. David relegates stories about his times with these
legends, both good and bad, throughout the entire book. In fact that’s what
makes this such a great read, Honeyboy has managed to recall most of his past. No
second hand information, no piecing together his life story from articles and
conversations, just straight up stories from a man who was on the road during
the birth of the blues. Stories about music, musicians, and life as a black man
living in the rural south during times that were not kind to “his type” is the
main basis for this entire book.
The
book concludes with two chapters that are extremely helpful to any blues music
fan. One is a description of blues slang, the other is a detailed description
of the people and musicians that crossed paths with Honeyboy during his
travels.
A
necessary read for any fan of the blue genre, for the simple fact that the stories
and tales that Honeyboy recalls reminds you what the blues were and are all about. A CD from Earwig Records that
contains both music and spoken word stories from Honeyboy is available
separately from the book but is also highly recommended.
David “Honeyboy” Edwards will be performing in the
Workshop tent at the 1999 Pocono’s Blues festival. Make sure you witness an
honest to god blues pioneer.
(Dave
Moskal) |
CD Review 
Beau
Jocque: Zydeco Giant (Mardi Gras)