Dancing with Muddy: Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, and My Lucky Life In and Out of the Blues

Jerry Portnoy grew up in Chicago hearing the blues being played outside his father’s rug store on famed Maxwell Street during the late 1940s and early '50s.

After dropping out of college, he became immersed in the colorful world of pool hustlers like Cornbread Red, and Minnesota Fats as he managed the largest pool hall in Chicago. During a stint as a paratrooper early in the Vietnam war, he applied for discharge as a conscientious objector, and lived in San Francisco during 1967’s "summer ...