Booking Opportunities
Dancing
With
Muddy
“Dancing with Muddy” is an informative and entertaining multi-media presentation featuring photos, videos, and music, that weaves Jerry’s unique personal story with a history of the blues, touching on some of the styles and major figures of the blues, the Great Migration, and anecdotes about Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Minnesota Fats, and other colorful characters.
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Interviews
&
Book Events
An Evening With Jerry Portnoy
Author of Dancing with Muddy
Jerry Portnoy is the only musician to have played in the bands of both Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton. His memoir, Dancing with Muddy: Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, and My Lucky Life In and Out of the Blues, was published in 2025 by Chicago Review Press.
Part blues history, part American road story, and part personal memoir, Dancing with Muddy traces Jerry’s journey from Chicago’s famed Maxwell Street Market to concert halls and festivals around the world alongside some of the most legendary figures in modern music.
Jerry is available for:
Podcasts
Radio interviews
Newspaper and magazine features
Bookstore events
Author conversations
Music journalism
Cultural and arts programming
Festival interviews and appearances
Bio
Jerry Portnoy is the ONLY musician to have played in the bands of both Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton. His riveting new memoir, Dancing with Muddy: Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, and My Lucky Life In and Out of the Blues, was published in 2025 by Chicago Review Press.
Jerry Portnoy grew up in the crucible of electric blues: Chicago’s famed Maxwell Street Market in the late 1940s and early ‘50s. He is a Grammy nominated veteran of both the fabled Muddy Waters Blues Band and the Eric Clapton Band, and has performed at the White House, Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, Radio City Music Hall, the Smithsonian, and at jazz festivals around the world in a career that has taken him to all fifty states and dozens of countries on six continents.
In a remarkable life, he also ran the largest pool room in Chicago, did a stint as a paratrooper, lived in San Francisco during 1967’s famed “Summer of Love,” assisted in surgery, worked at Cook County Jail, and dined at Giorgio Armani’s home. He is pictured on the packaging for the Marine Band harmonica: the world’s most popular musical instrument. His autobiography/memoir Dancing with Muddy: Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, and My Lucky Life In and Out of the Blues was published in 2025 by Chicago Review Press.