John Hayes 2/20/21 John Hayes 2/20/21

Blues Artist of the Week - Buddy Guy

George “Buddy” Guy (1936 - current) is an American blues guitarist and singer born and raised in Lettsworth, Louisiana. He was a sharecropper’s son whose early influences were from across the river in Mississippi. Guys you’ve heard of like B.B. King, Guitar Slim, Muddy Waters, and John Lee Hooker.

Like many Blues artists, Buddy moved to Chicago. His move in 1957 came after he was working at Louisiana State University as a utility man. Chicago was providing him an opportunity to follow his dream of working on his music. Early on, he befriended fellow Mississippians Otis Rush and Muddy Waters, who encouraged and pushed him forward.

His signing with Chess Records also marked a bit of an impediment and slowdown in his career as they refused to record Buddy, with Leonard Chess, Chess Records founder, denounced Guy’s playing as “just making noise.”

As Wikipedia describes Buddy’s style as “…varied from the most traditional, deepest blues to a creative, unpredictable and radical gumbo of the blues, rock, soul and free jazz that changes with each performance.”

Buddy continued to perform and hone his Blues ear and was part of the Blues revival of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The highlight came when Eric Clapton requested Buddy be part of the His “24 Nights” all-star blues guitar lineup at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Buddy also started to have commercial success with his breakthrough album of Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues in 1991. This was the first of his many albums to reach the Billboard charts. His CDs Sweet Tea, his first to hit No. 1 on the Billboard blues charts in 2001, and Blues Singer, both laced with Guy’s renditions of Mississippi blues, were recorded in Oxford, Mississippi. The cover of The Blues Is Alive and Well, another No. 1 blues CD in 2018, pictured Buddy back in Lettsworth, showing he never forgot his roots.

Like many Blues greats, he has influenced many in rock and roll, including Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, Gary Clark Jr., and John Mayer.

Eric Clapton and B.B. King help induct Buddy into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

Buddy still actively performs and tours.