Chicago blues bar buddy guy biography

He can play quieter than anybody I've ever heard, or wilder and louder than anybody I've ever heard. I play pretty loud a lot of times, but Buddy's tones are incredible. He pulls such emotion out of so little volume. Buddy just has this cool feel to everything he does. And when he sings, it's just compounded. Girls fall over and sweat and die!

Every once in a while I get the chance to play with Buddy, and he gets me every time, because we could try to go to Mars on guitars but then he'll start singing, sing a couple of lines, and then stick the mike in front of me! What are you going to do? What is a person going to do?!

Chicago blues bar buddy guy biography: George "Buddy" Guy (born July

Geez, you can't forget Buddy Guy. He transcended blues and started becoming theater. It was high art, kind of like drama theater when he played, you know. He was playing behind his head long before Hendrix. I once saw him throw the guitar up in the air and catch it in the same chord. Beck recalled the night he and Vaughan performed with Guy at Buddy Guy's Legends club in Chicago: "That was just the most incredible stuff I ever heard in my life.

The three of us all jammed and it was so thrilling. That is as close you can come to the heart of the blues. He signed with Leonard Chess inand became a noted session musician while recording his own singles. In an interview with John Lee Hooker by Jas Obrecht of Guitar Player, Guy talked about his attitude when playing as a session musician with some of the masters: "When I got to Chicago, there were so many great guitarists around that I went to work a regular job.

When I saw these people play, I just knew that there was no way I had a chance. I just wanted to meet these great musicians, and I woke up and they was askin' me to play with them. One thing helped me a lot was I was a good listener, and if they would ask me to play with them, I didn't go tell John Lee or Muddy Waters or the Howlin' Wolf or Walter what to play When I went into the studio with them, I got in the corner and said, 'I'm at school now.

It's time for me to learn my lesson, not teach. Guy appeared on Folk Singer, an acoustic record by Muddy Waters. When Leonard Chess objected to the electric guitarist being included on an acoustic album, Waters told the record label owner to "shut up and sit down. Though Guy received a measure of success and notoriety in Chicago, few outside the blues capital of the world knew about him.

But those that did know his style were devoted and influential. Clapton co-produced Guy's collaboration with harmonica legend Junior Wells inBuddy Guy and Junior Wells Play the Blues, and the artist was instrumental in Guy's later ascent to stardom. Guy continued to tour, most of the time without a recording contract, though he did release Stone Crazy, a live album of a performance in France in In he opened a blues chicago blues bar buddy guy biography in Chicago, the Checkerboard Lounge, which he ran until His days as a club owner resumed when he opened another Chicago blues club, Legends, in The concerts were recorded on Clapton's 24 Nights album, and suddenly everyone wanted to know who Buddy Guy was.

After all those years of playing in anonymity, Guy wanted the album to be just right. He was resolved to capture the Buddy Guy live sound that he had been unable to capture before. He told Ed Enright of Downbeat about the negotiations leading up to the groundbreaking recording: "They told me, 'We'd like to sign you, and we would want to support you.

I want you to hear that, because I'm a Johnny Come Later now; everybody else says these are Buddy Guy licks, and Buddy Guy has never played them himself. Won't you come to London and make this session? The album reached gold record status in Canada, New Zealand, and England, and made Guy a star on the international blues scene. Guy followed up his hit record with Feels Like Rain in For his new album, Guy wanted to make more of an ambitious statement.

He told Jim Washburn of The Los Angeles Times that he wanted a wider audience: "We got down in the alley on it, but also we were trying to get some of the bigger radio stations that do not play Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf to hopefully feel that maybe some of it would fit on their station. The following year Billboard presented Guy with its highest honor, the Century Award for lifetime achievement.

The man who went almost 13 years without a recording contract was now recording soundtracks and going on tour with the Saturday Night Live Band. His club, Legends, which he had struggled to keep open, was finally secured as a place where new blues talent could develop just as the master did. Though he recorded another successful album, Slippin' In, and continued to tour around the world, Guy rarely strayed far from his Chicago home and Legends, often popping in to the bar to mingle with the crowd and listen to the local talent.

What the hell is that? He had a little three-piece band, two guitars and drums, and he played a little harmonica. And he bought a Strat for me to play in his band. That was the first time I got to play one.

Chicago blues bar buddy guy biography: Buddy Guy's Legends is a blues

If something happened, they could crack easy and all of that. Plus, Leo Fender had that tone and that sound on it, man. So I got hooked with that experience. InGuy moved to Chicago to look for better-paying work, but not before cutting a demo at a local radio station. He packed the reel-to-reel tape along with the upgrade from his Harmony acoustic — a Gibson Les Paul.

His first British visit in with the American Folk Blues Festival launched his prestigious fan club. They told me I was just making noise. ISSN Buddy Guy. NY Times. WBSS Media. Chicago: Sweetwater. June 24, Retrieved June 26, Back to about my mother and that Polka dot, I lied to her and I told her I'ma make double the money, I'ma send you some money, and I'ma drive back down here to Louisianna—I'm trying to make her feel good—in a Polka-dot Cadillac and I knew I was lyin' and I knew I didn't never want to buy a polka dot 'cause if you got famous, that polka dot would show up everywhere there where you went, you couldn't rest 'cause sometime I try to go to dinner now in Brazil or Germany or wherever and if they recognize you if you're going to your mouth with a fork they'll come grab your hand and say 'will you sign this?

I said I'd like to get a Polka-dot guitar made so I'd have that with me the rest of my life 'cause I didn't want—'cause I didn't get a chance to tell her I lied to her. Guitar World. December 8, Archived from the original on November 4, November 26, Archived from the original on July 8, Retrieved December 30, Independent Music Awards.

Chicago blues bar buddy guy biography: Guy's personal reputation as the crowned

Archived from the original on July 13, Retrieved January 18, Archived from the original on September 17, Retrieved May 23, Retrieved May 21, — via National Archives. Archived from the original on January 20, Retrieved November 25, December 3, Archived from the original on January 1, September 12, Archived from the original on November 9, Archived from the original on May 8, December 7, Retrieved December 7, February 15, Retrieved August 28, — via Twitter.

The New York Times. The Advocate. Retrieved February 10, American Academy of Achievement. Da Capo Press. USA Today. July 20, Further reading [ edit ]. External links [ edit ]. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Buddy Guy.