Tag Archives: Buddy Guy

Put you in my house…

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Brian Smith’s book of fabulous Sixties blues photographs Boom Boom Boom Boom is finally shipping. It’s a big deal for us moving the title from ‘forthcoming’ to ‘out now’ on the site! We spent most of last week dealing with pre-orders, moving stock up from the printers (three trips so as not to ruin the suspension on the old Honda), nipping back and forth to the post offices (plural, we like to support our local businesses so used all three of our closest outlets) as Ann got copies packed and labelled, as well as getting a pallet loaded to go down to the warehouse so bookshops will be able to order from next week. Early indications are that the book is being well received (and we are certainly chuffed with how it looks) but we will catch up on people’s comments another day. A huge thank you to everyone who has supported this project at any stage of production and for the patience of customers, especially this past few weeks while we dealt with final production niggles. It’s now on to the promotion side of things to get the word out and we will keep people updated on that as things happen.

Read about the book / Order the book + discount + free bookmark

Buddy Guy, Manchester Twisted Wheel. Photograph Brian Smith

Dynamic duo

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A couple more snazzy pages from our upcoming book of rare Blues photographs. We will be sending another newsletter out to everyone who subscribed for details of this project, you can still do so on the Forthcoming page under The Blues Photographs of Brian Smith. The pages here show Bo Diddley on stage (we use the word stage very loosely!) at the Jigsaw Club in Manchester. Brian got squeezed up against the drum kit but he did get a nice shot of Clifton James as a result. On the other page is Buddy Guy enjoying the vibes from his backing band at The Twisted Wheel. Amazingly they turned up late to replace his regular band (who got lost!), discussed the set list and then went on with NO rehearsal for what Brian calls a storming set. His proper band finally arrived in time to do the second set. This accounts for the intense looks of the band as they keep tabs on Buddy for their cues.

Fine tuning

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As we are about to send out updated press releases, Brian Smith’s Boom Boom photo book cover has had a little more time spent on it, in particular cleaning up the edges of the cut-out images which had been done only roughly until now. If you are wondering who is who on the cover, that’s Screaming Jay Hawkins on the far right with Brian Smith himself joining in the fun, taken by one of Brian’s mates; I wanted to sneak Brian onto the cover if we could!  Little Richard in the centre is a star more people might recognise. I realised a few days ago we ought to try and get John Lee Hooker onto the front too, so tweaked things to enable this and fitted him next to Little Richard.  On the left is Buddy Guy. The main cover photograph is of Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson. Several of these images were taken inside the Twisted Wheel Club, one of Brian’s regular haunts

Work in progress

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Snapped at the designer’s (1960s Ercol) worktop a few weeks ago: “I often use a split screen set-up for the design and layout but here preferred to work on the laptop; on a final run through like this any changes are likely to be very minimal, most of the heavy work has – hopefully – been done..!” Each page of the Boom Boom Blues Photo Book is here being signed off via a monochrome laser print prior to preparing the PDF for the printer. The page on screen shows Buddy Guy in action at The Twisted Wheel Club, one of a series of terrific live shots Brian got on the night. Amazingly Buddy’s backing band for the first show were delayed getting there, and a local Manchester group were called in with zero rehearsal time. Buddy almost brought the house down, smashing his guitar into the Wheel club ceiling at the end! We did try a few times to get Buddy to write us a few words for the book but his useless manager rudely ignored all our emails.