On today’s episode, we trace the history of Chicago blues, especially blues harmonica, and its role in the birth of rock n’ roll with guest Kim Field, writer, musician, and co-author of the book The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold.
Born in Chicago in 1935, William Arnold, better known as Billy Boy, started playing blues harmonica professionally as a teenager. His career spans over eight decades, in which he’s met and performed with many of the greats, including Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Otis Rush, Otis Spann, Elmore James, Jimmy Reed, James Cotton, Paul Butterfield, and Charlie Musselwhite. And his songs have been recorded by early rock groups like the Yardbirds, with Eric Clapton on guitar, and the Animals.
Billy Boy is still with us, at the age of 87, and still playing the blues. After seeing him perform at Seattle’s Jazz Alley in 2015, Kim was inspired to do a book on Billy Boy’s life in music. A few years later, Kim pitched the idea to Billy Boy himself, and they sat down over the next 1 ½ years to record over 60 hours of interviews. The result is The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold, a memoir told entirely in Billy Boy’s own words, painstakingly transcribed by Kim from those tapes. As Kim writes in the book’s Introduction, Billy Boy’s “memory is nothing short of phenomenal. He possesses an encyclopedic recall.”
I think you’ll find, as we’re transported back to the Chicago of the 50s and 60s, and the early days of rock both here and in England, that Billy Boy is as spellbinding a storyteller as he is a musician.
- KBOO