George "Buddy" Guy was born on July 30, 1936and raised in Lettsworth, Louisiana, Guy began learning guitar on a two string diddley bow he made. Later he was given a Harmony acoustic guitar, which, decades later in Guy's lengthy career was donated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His earliest influences included T-Bone Walker, Lightnin’ Slim and Lightnin’ Hopkins - blues musicians who were all uniquely expressive stylists and showmen.
Buddy Guy’s high-energy showmanship also owed a debt to Guitar Slim (a.k.a. Eddie Jones), of “The Things That I Used to Do” fame.
As Guy stated in his autobiography, “I wanted to play like BB. King but act like Guitar Slim.” Along the way, he developed his own style, typified by a fierce, staccato attack and tense, single-note solos. In the early '50s he began performing with bands in Baton Rouge. Soon after moving to Chicago in 1957, Guy fell under the influence of Muddy Waters. In 1958, a competition with West Side guitarists Magic Sam and Otis Rush gave Guy a record contract. Soon afterwards he recorded for Cobra Records. He recorded sessions with Junior Wells for Delmark Records under the pseudonym Friendly Chap in 1965 and 1966.
Guy’s early career was supposedly held back by both conservative business choices made by his record company (Chess Records) and "the scorn, diminishments and petty subterfuge from a few jealous rivals". Chess, Guy’s record label from 1959 to 1968, refused to record Buddy Guy’s novel style that was similar to his live shows. Leonard Chess (Chess founder and 1987 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee) denounced Guy’s playing as "noise". Guy’s Chess sides never won the recognition that accrued to some of his labelmates, but he scored a hit with “Stone Crazy,” his fourth single for the label. In an edited version - the original ran for seven minutes - it went to #12 R&B in 1962. Another highlight of his Chess tenure was “When My Left Eye Jumps,” a menacing slow blues penned by Willie Dixon. While at Chess, Guy also served as an in-house guitarist, playing on sessions for Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Koko Taylor, Sonny Boy Williamson and others. Notably, he performed on Koko Taylor’s “Wang Dang Doodle” and Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor.”
Buddy Guy appeared onstage at the March 1969 Supershow at Staines, England that also included Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Jack Bruce, Stephen Stills, Buddy Miles, Glen Campbell, Roland Kirk, Jon Hiseman, and The Misunderstood. But by the late 1960s, Guy's star was in decline.
Taking notice of the evolving blues-rock scene in England, Guy left Chess in 1968 and moved to Vanguard Records, where he cut the classic albums A Man and His Blues and Hold That Plane. In 1970 Buddy and the Juniors - a trio of Guy, harmonica player Junior Wells and pianist Junior Mance - was released on Blue Thumb. Guy’s partnership with Wells yielded the 1972 album Buddy Guy and Junior Wells Play the Blues. A spontaneous, tradition-minded blues set, it was produced by the impressive triumvirate of Eric Clapton, Ahmet Ertegun and Tom Dowd and released on Atco Records. Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman produced and played on the Guy-Wells live album Drinkin’ TNT ‘n’ Smokin’ Dynamite, recorded in 1974.
Though he continued to perform, Guy’s recording career stalled somewhat in the Eighties. In 1989, he opened the blues club Legends in Chicago, which became a favorite hangout for blues musicians. Guy’s comeback began when he joined Eric Clapton onstage at London’s Royal Albert Hall during the guitarist’s multi-night run in 1990-91. That exposure led to a new recording contract. Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues - the first of many albums on the Silvertone label - ignited a full-blown renaissance that made Guy the preeminent blues guitarist of the Nineties. In fact, Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues became that rarity: a blues accord that sold well enough to earn a gold record (500,000 copies sold). The star-studded album included cameos by such acolytes as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Mark Knopfler. Two years later he released Feels Like Rain, which included contributions from Bonnie Raitt, Travis Tritt and John Mayall. Later that same year Guy received the prestigious Century Award “for distinguished artistic achievement” from Billboard magazine.
Nearing seventy, Guy is still going strong. Recent releases have included Sweet Tea an electric blues album recorded in Mississippi, and Blues Singer, a 2004 acoustic set in which Guy covers favorites by such peers as Skip James, Son House and John Lee Hooker.
Guy's career finally took off during the blues revival period of the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was sparked by Clapton's request that Guy be part of the '24 Nights' all-star blues guitar lineup at London's Royal Albert Hall and Guy's subsequent signing with Silvertone Records.
For almost 50 years, Guy performed flamboyant live concerts of energetic blues and blues rock, predating the 1960s blues rockers. As a musician’s musician, he had a fundamental impact on the blues and on rock and roll, influencing a new generation of artists.
Buddy Guy has been called the bridge between the blues and rock and roll. He is one of the historic links between Chicago electric blues pioneers Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf and popular musicians like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page as well as later revivalists like Stevie Ray Vaughan. Vaughan stated that, "Without Buddy Guy, there would be no Stevie Ray Vaughan." Guitarist magazine observed:
Without Buddy Guy, the blues, not to mention rock as we know it, might be a heckuva lot less interesting today. Take the blues out of contemporary rock music—or pop, jazz and funk for that matter—and what you have left is a wholly spineless affair. A tasteless stew. Makes you shudder to think about it...
In addition, Guy's pathfinding guitar techniques also contributed greatly to rock and roll music. His guitar playing was loud and aggressive; used pioneering distortion and feedback techniques; employed longer solos; had shifts of volume and texture; and was driven by emotion and impulse. These lessons were eagerly learned and applied by the new wave of 1960s British artists and later became basic attributes of blues-rock music and its offspring, hard rock and heavy metal music. Jeff Beck realized in the early 1960s: "I didn't know a Strat could sound like that — until I heard Buddy's tracks on the Blues From Big Bill's Copa Cabana album" (reissue of 1963 Folk Festival Of The Blues album) and "It was the total manic abandon in Buddy's solos. They broke all boundaries. I just thought, this is more like it! Also, his solos weren't restricted to a three-minute pop format; they were long and really developed."
Clapton has stated that he got the idea for a blues-rock power trio while watching Buddy Guy's trio perform in England in 1965. Clapton later formed the rock band Cream, which was "the first rock supergroup to become superstars" and was also "the first top group to truly exploit the power-trio format, in the process laying the foundation for much blues-rock and hard rock of the 1960s and 1970s."
Eric Clapton said "Buddy Guy was to me what Elvis was for others." Clapton said in a 1985 Musician magazine article that "Buddy Guy is by far and without a doubt the best guitar player alive...if you see him in person, the way he plays is beyond anyone. Total freedom of spirit, I guess. He really changed the course of rock and roll blues."
Stevie Ray Vaughan once declared that Buddy Guy "plays from a place that I've never heard anyone play." Vaughan continued:
Buddy can go from one end of the spectrum to another. 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 gonna do? What is a person gonna do?!
Jeff Beck affirmed:
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 Stevie Ray Vaughan jammed 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."
According to Jimmy Page: "Buddy Guy is an absolute monster" and "There were a number of albums that everybody got tuned into in the early days. There was one in particular called, I think, American Folk Festival Of The Blues, which featured Buddy Guy. He just astounded everybody."
Former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman: "Guitar Legends do not come any better than Buddy Guy. He is feted by his peers and loved by his fans for his ability to make the guitar both talk and cry the blues. Such is Buddy's mastery of the guitar that there is virtually no guitarist that he cannot imitate."
Guy has opened for the Rolling Stones on numerous tours since the early 1970s. Slash: "Buddy Guy is the perfect combination of R&B and hardcore rock and roll." ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons: "He (Buddy Guy) ain't no trickster. He may appear surprised by his own instant ability but, clearly, he knows what's up."
Guy was a judge for the 6th and 8th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists.
Guy appeared and performed in an episode of the popular children's show, Jack's Big Music Show, as the "King of Swing". Guy has influenced the styles of subsequent artists such as Jesse Marchant of JBM
Guy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 14, 2005 by Eric Clapton and B.B. King. Eric Clapton recalled seeing Guy perform in London’s Marquee Club in 1965, impressing him with his technique, his looks and his charismatic showmanship. He remembered seeing Guy pick the guitar with his teeth and play it over his head—two tricks that later influenced Jimi Hendrix. Guy’s acceptance speech was concise: "If you don’t think you have the blues, just keep living."
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