Buddy Guy in the New Yorker

[gvopedz]

My apologies if this has already been posted:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/buddy-guy-is-keeping-the-blues-alive

[Brad]

Good article. Thanks for the reminder. 

[paul secor]

I'll listen to his older recordings, rather than the current stuff, but I'm happy for him that he's done well financially.

[Bill Nelson]

While it's a pleasure for Buddy Guy to get a well-deserved feature in The New Yorker, the writing of David Remnick produced a few howlers.

Particularly in comparing Guy to B.B. King: "...more often he (Guy) throws in as much as the listener can take:  Guy is a putter-inner, not a taker-outer."

Followed next sentence by a wretched stew/gumbo metaphor: "His solos are a rich stew of everything-at-once-ness -- all the groceries, all the spices, thrown into the pot, notes and riffs smashing together and producing the combined effect of pain, endurance, ecstasy."   (Block that metaphor!)

And two paragraphs later with the blatantly obvious: "Guy's devotion and sense of obligation to the blues form began long before the death of B.B. King." 

 

The New Yorker is a higher-browed general interest publication which may be why Remnick chose to keep the text excruciatingly simple for the uninformed, using such terminology as "putter-inner, not a taker-outer".  David Remnick's expertise has been international politics, Russia in particular.  He's also been The New Yorker's editor for the last 20 years, so, yeah, it's good he personally wrote a feature on the last blues legend standing, even with the clams.        

[kh1958]

I would recommend Buddy Guy's book (well, it is "co-authored"), When I Left Home. His recollections of his childhood and early days in Chicago are quite vivid and entertaining. In one story, he and B.B. King go to see Gene Ammons in a Chicago club. (Just the fact that this happened makes me happy.)

Edited March 13, 2019 by kh1958

[JSngry]

  On 3/13/2019 at 12:36 PM, kh1958 said:

I would recommend Buddy Guy's book (well, it is "co-authored")...

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with David Ritz?

[kh1958]

  On 3/13/2019 at 1:11 PM, JSngry said:

with David Ritz?

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Yes, that's the co-author.

[JSngry]

I've been please with his work over the years, very pleased. One guy who seems to really get it. He did Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight(?), I forget who all. But I see his name as a mark of quality.

He spent the early-mid 1960s working at an ad agency in Dallas btw. Wrote an article about it a few years ago in D Magazine, talking about how the whole Mad Men thing was, yep, pretty much.

[kh1958]

  On 3/13/2019 at 3:33 PM, JSngry said:

I've been please with his work over the years, very pleased. One guy who seems to really get it. He did Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight(?), I forget who all. But I see his name as a mark of quality.

He spent the early-mid 1960s working at an ad agency in Dallas btw. Wrote an article about it a few years ago in D Magazine, talking about how the whole Mad Men thing was, yep, pretty much.

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The book feels like you are in Buddy Guy's house as a friend, and he's telling you stories of his life--and he is a very good storyteller.

I do recall being offended by some article or review that David Ritz wrote in the 1970s,  perhaps in some local publication, where he was comparing Roland Kirk to James Clay, putting down Roland Kirk.

 

Edited March 13, 2019 by kh1958

[Dan Gould]

BB King and Etta James as well.

Also R Kelly. Wonder if he'd like to revise that one ...

[ghost of miles]

  On 3/13/2019 at 4:53 AM, Bill Nelson said:

While it's a pleasure for Buddy Guy to get a well-deserved feature in The New Yorker, the writing of David Remnick produced a few howlers.

Particularly in comparing Guy to B.B. King: "...more often he (Guy) throws in as much as the listener can take:  Guy is a putter-inner, not a taker-outer."

Followed next sentence by a wretched stew/gumbo metaphor: "His solos are a rich stew of everything-at-once-ness -- all the groceries, all the spices, thrown into the pot, notes and riffs smashing together and producing the combined effect of pain, endurance, ecstasy."   (Block that metaphor!)

And two paragraphs later with the blatantly obvious: "Guy's devotion and sense of obligation to the blues form began long before the death of B.B. King." 

 

The New Yorker is a higher-browed general interest publication which may be why Remnick chose to keep the text excruciatingly simple for the uninformed, using such terminology as "putter-inner, not a taker-outer".  David Remnick's expertise has been international politics, Russia in particular.  He's also been The New Yorker's editor for the last 20 years, so, yeah, it's good he personally wrote a feature on the last blues legend standing, even with the clams.        

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Yes, Remnick is great on Russia and the like, but the New Yorker might have been better off giving this assignment to Amanda Petrusich, based on what you've posted above.  But I'll still check it out--looks like it's also in the print edition, which just arrived a couple of days ago.

[JSngry]

  On 3/13/2019 at 3:48 PM, ghost of miles said:

 But I'll still check it out--looks like it's also in the print edition, which just arrived a couple of days ago.

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Do you get it at home, or at the school? Mine generally comes on the Friday after the release of the online edition. Spent the weekend on this issue

Then again, I guess the way things happen now, the thing might actually be getting printed by someplace like the Dallas Morning News' printing facility. They do the NY Times, among other outside assignments. I guess that's how print works these days.

[ghost of miles]

  On 3/13/2019 at 4:13 PM, JSngry said:

Do you get it at home, or at the school? Mine generally comes on the Friday after the release of the online edition. Spent the weekend on this issue

Then again, I guess the way things happen now, the thing might actually be getting printed by someplace like the Dallas Morning News' printing facility. They do the NY Times, among other outside assignments. I guess that's how print works these days.

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I get it at home, and it usually arrives on Friday or Saturday.  So I guess it's been more than a couple of days... I'm in some kind of haze when it comes to time lately.