HOME & BEAN

My tour of Long Island NY (one gig) and Georgia (eight) is over. I flew out of Atlanta on Saturday afternoon, out of JFK that evening, arrived in London Sunday morning, hung around charmless Heathrow Terminal 5 all day (its one virtue being Carluccio's, a bustling, authentically Italian eaterie with genuinely friendly staff and real food [such a contrast to Georgia's]), flew into Toulouse on Sunday evening and made it home about 11.30 that night.

Among much else waiting for me, the URL to 100bookshelf, a blog that was new to me but on which someone named Bean has posted this superbly generous review of my book:

“Michael Gray’s Hand Me My Travelin’ Shoes is not just one of my favorite music books, it’s one of my favorite books in general…

[It] goes, exactly as the [sub-]title says, ‘in search of’ Blind Willie. That means that this is not a biography exactly – it’s also the story of the author’s journey to find what is, essentially, a musical needle in a haystack. He meets some very interesting characters, uncovers some weird stories, travels through and to places tourists don’t usually go, and – along the way – finds out some amazing clues to who Blind Willie McTell really was…

If you’re interested in the blues, or a side of American life we don’t normally see, or both, this book is one of the best you’ll ever find. Hand Me My Travelin’ Shoes is a beautiful portrait of a time and place – both past and present – as well as a fascinating glimpse into a most mysterious man.”