Roy Book Binder born October 5, 1943

Roy Alan Bookbinder (October 5, 1943 – March 3, 2026), known professionally as Roy Book Binder, was an American blues guitarist, singer-songwriter and storyteller. A student and friend of the Reverend Gary Davis, he was equally at home with blues and ragtime. He was known to shift from open tunings to slide arrangements to original compositions, with both traditional and self-styled licks. His storytelling was another characteristic that made his style unique.

Roy Bookbinder was born in Queens, New York City, on October 5, 1943. Upon graduation from high school, he joined the Navy and undertook a tour of duty in Europe. He bought his first guitar at a military base in Italy. After completing his enlistment, he returned to New York, where he met and became friends with his guitar hero, Dave Van Ronk. Book Binder soon sought out the Reverend Gary Davis, who also lived in New York, and became his student and later his chauffeur and tour companion. Much of Book Binder's original material is based on his time on the road with Davis.

He started his recording career slowly, cutting some singles for Kicking Mule and Blue Goose in 1968. In 1969, he toured England with Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup and Homesick James. After meeting another of his musical influences, the bluesman Pink Anderson, Book Binder released his first album, Travelin' Man, on Adelphi. The album was named after one of the songs he learned from Anderson. In 1973, he began a partnership with the fiddler Fats Kaplin, and they recorded Git Fiddle Shuffle in 1973. They performed together for three years, playing numerous concerts and recording a second album, Ragtime Millionaire, in 1977. After this partnership dissolved, Book Binder began touring the country, living in a motor home, and concentrating on live performances.

                                 

Roy began playing with fiddler Fats Kaplin in 1973, recording Git Fiddle Shuffle the same year. Roy and Fats were a duo for three years, playing numerous concerts and recording a second album, Ragtime Millionaire, in 1976. Following the release of Ragtime Millionaire, the duo stopped performing together and Book Binder bought a motor home, which became his permanent residence. Live performances became his primary concern after the release of Goin' Back to Tampa in 1979. For nearly ten years, he toured the country in the motor home, driving himself from club to club, hitting numerous coffeehouses and festivals along the way.

Roy Orbison & Roy Book Binder

Roy returned to recording in 1988, releasing Bookaroo! on Rounder Records. In addition to his constant touring, he recorded regularly in the '90s and remained active into the new millennium; his albums during this period included The Hillbilly Blues Cats (1992, Rounder), Live Book...Don't Start Me Talkin'... (1994, Rounder), Polk City Ramble (1998, Rounder), Singer Songwriter Bluesman (2001, PEGleg), and Live at the Fur Peace Station (2005, PEGleg). “I don’t play gigs in places where I wouldn’t go socially,” Book Binder once told thecountryblues.com. “I don’t play the bar blues scene. It’s not my thing. I am just a folk player. Until I started my own label, I didn’t know you could make money from selling records. I had recorded plenty of times, but I never got paid by the labels. So I started my own, Peg leg Records.”

Notables that have shared the stage with Book Binder include Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King, John Jackson, Sonny Terry, Doc Watson, Ray Charles, and Brownie McGhee. He has appeared regularly on Nashville Now. He is listed in Blues Who's Who, by the music historian Sheldon Harris. Book Binder was also a veteran guitar instructor and taught at the Fur Peace Ranch with Jorma Kaukonen and others whose lives have been influenced by Davis. There he demonstrated songs, turnarounds, chord variations, right-hand methods, and many of his own adaptations and unique approaches to the blues. His album Hillbilly Blues Cats (Rounder) was named as one of the ten most essential acoustic guitar albums of 1992. The 1992 category winners also included Eric Clapton's Unplugged, Lyle Lovett's Joshua Judges Ruth and Neil Young's Harvest Moon.

Throughout his career, Roy, always humble, promoted himself primarily as a singer, songwriter, storyteller, and a guitarist second. Roy would be the first to admit that other pickers with whom he shared his history, such as the late Woody Mann, Peter Berley and Ari Eisinger, were much more accomplished technicians. Bookbinder, however, was more concerned with the stories in the music—the telling of a good yarn, if you will—and in entertaining as wide an audience as possible. In his later years, one of Roy’s favorite sayings was that “It’s better to be lucky than talented, smart or good looking,” and he attributed his success to taking advantage of breaks that presented themselves in the course of his hard work.

In 2025, Roy ended his yearly touring and headed to Florida, where he had wintered since the late 1980s. Unfortunately, once home, his health rapidly deteriorated. By the end of February, he was in a hospice, where he passed away March 3, 2026. He was 82.

(Edited from AllMusic, Wikipedia & Folk Works)