Buddy Guy occupies a unique place in guitar history. He learned from blues giants including Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, T-Bone Walker, B.B. King, Lightnin’ Hopkins and John Lee Hooker before going on to influence Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Keith Richards and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
As the blues legend prepares to celebrate his 90th birthday in July by returning to the road on his BG90 tour, it’s a fitting time to revisit a conversation with Guitar Player in which he explained why, despite everything that changed around him, he never felt the need to change himself.
“I’ve learned a little more, but it’s still Buddy Guy,” he told Guitar Player in 2001. “If you put me through a modern amplifier, somebody is going to say, ‘He don’t sound like he used to.’ Well, of course, the guitars and amps aren’t the same today. But the man is still the same. I’m using the same fingers I left Louisiana with.”
For Guy, that continuity wasn’t stubbornness so much as an understanding of where his music came from. The more he reflected on his own career, which began in 1953, the more he saw himself as part of a tradition rather than a singular talent.
“I can’t really say how my style has changed,” he said. “I used to tell T-Bone Walker, B.B., Lightnin’ Hopkins, Muddy, and John Lee Hooker — all those guys I learned from — that I didn’t have anything unique. Guess what they said? ‘Buddy, we got it from someone else, too.’”
The biggest lesson those legendary musicians passed on had little to do with technique.
“Oh, man, lesson number one is be cool,” Guy recalled. “They weren’t making any money, but they were having fun playing.”
Watching those pioneers of acoustic and electric blues shaped his outlook long before the genre found a larger audience through the British blues boom.
“I used to look at them and say, ‘Buddy, you ain’t never gonna be that good, and nobody is ever going to fill those shoes.’ Those guys weren’t superstars then, but I thought they were living the high life. It made me think, This is as high as you can go.
“Then the British groups got into the blues, and were able to live decently from it. But I still worked in the daytime. I drove a tow truck.”
Ironically, it was those same rock musicians who later helped introduce Guy to millions of listeners.
“It makes me feel great, because some of the things that people like Eric Clapton and Keith Richards and the late Stevie Ray Vaughan said about me have helped me more than any record company,” he said. “So many kids come up to me and say, “I didn’t know anything about you until I read what Eric Clapton said.’ That gives me a big lift.”
That gratitude didn’t stop Guy from acknowledging the inequalities he’d witnessed throughout his career.
“Let’s be honest — when you’re Black, it doesn’t matter how good a blues record you make, you’re not going to get it played on these big radio stations unless some super guy like Eric Clapton or Stevie Ray Vaughan plays the same thing you played,” he said.
“Blues has been like that ever since I’ve been alive. It has been ignored until some rock group gets it, plays it to big audiences, and tells them whose music it is.”
Still, Guy never lost faith in either the music or the people who loved it.
“I guess that’s why we still sing the blues,” he said. “I just look at it like a prizefighter — if I don’t get in that ring and risk getting knocked out, I ain’t got a chance to win.”
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