Been Here and Gone
A Memoir of the Blues
David Dalton
"If Charles Dickens and Memphis Minnie had a kid, this is how he would write" Stanley Booth
Born on the Delta plantations over a hundred years ago, Coley Williams grows up with voodoo spirits singing all night long. He travels the railroads with his guitar on his back (but whatever his misdemeanours, always finds himself coming home to sweet and sassy Vida Lee). He's there when Robert Johnson's pact with the Devil catches up with him in a jar of poison whiskey; he sees Blind Lemon Jefferson playing his own peculiar game of blind man's buff in a Dallas cathouse; he drinks with Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters in Chicago and Elvis in Memphis, and even makes it to London, where he hangs out with "a couple of skinny little English boys" called Mick and Keith... This is an epic for a whole age, and a heartfelt tribute to the people and the places of the blues. A magnificent work of fiction, Been Here and Gone is also a lasting contribution to the literature of music, testifying to the spirit of the blues with a raw and righteous, moving and unforgettable voice.
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About David Dalton David Dalton is a former contributing editor at Rolling Stone. His many books include definitive works on the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, James Dean, Jim Morrison, Marianne Faithfull, the Grateful Dead and Sid Vicious.
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