May 11, 2007
If anybody has the right to have the blues it's Buddy Guy. Just consider:
-- The man who was the major guitar influence for Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton was unknown in the mainstream for most of his life.
-- The innovative guitarist was held back by his record label for more than a decade, being told his distorted, rock-riffed licks weren't blues. Chess Records instead used Guy as a session musician backing blues pioneers like Muddy Waters, Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson.
-- Many of his songs were stolen and credited to other songwriters.
-- After finally breaking free of his contract, Chess and other companies released and profited off Guy's solo studio work. There were more than 20 albums with Guy's name on them released in the 1970s and '80s. From those albums, Guy said he "got nothing. I didn't know anything about royalties."
No one could blame Guy for being bitter. Yet he's not.
The extraordinary master of the Stratocaster who has always approached his craft as a learning experience had lessons about life from the blues pioneers who came before him. He knew so many who were angry and bitter until the day they died.
"I'm strong enough not to let that bother me," Guy said. "What am I going to do, go kick a dead man's grave? If I was bitter I might be dead or I might be all wrapped up drunk."
Instead, the 70-year-old continues on a furiously paced touring schedule, is releasing an album every two or three years and gives blues artists a venue at his Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago. He shares his knowledge about the music industry with his hip-hop daughter Shawanna.
"You've got to watch them or they will screw you," Guy said about music companies.
Guy learned the hard lessons after being raised a well-mannered young man in Baton Rouge, La. where "we didn't ever even need to lock our cars."
Guy fell in love with the blues as a teenager listening to the radio and going to shows.
"I saw Lightning Slim in Baton Rouge and I thought he was faking me," said Guy, who was further amazed to witness B.B. King "bending and squeezing" guitar chords.
Harmonica great Little Walter Jacobs also came through Baton Rouge and he told him about Chicago with its South and West sides and a half-dozen blues bars on every block.
"I heard if you go to Chicago it's like New Orleans with 250 million people and everything is 24-7," said Guy, who was confident enough at the age of 20 in 1957 to take a train out of the Jim Crow South and into the Windy City. "I could play. I had seven or eight Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters records."
As the often-told story goes Guy hadn't eaten in three days and was considering going back home. Then Waters, who had heard about the new guitarist in town, came to see him play at a small club. Waters gave Guy a loaf of bread and a stick of salami and some advice.
"Don't even think about going back to Louisiana," Waters said.
Soon after Guy signed with Cobra Records followed by Chess from 1959 to 1968. He reveled in the company he kept.
"I forgot how cold it got in Chicago," he said. "After I got with Walter, Sonny Boy, (Howlin') Wolf and Muddy I didn't get cold no more."
The language voiced in this loose cirvle was almost as colorful as those in it, Guy said.
"Musicians are like any other person," he said. "I thought I was in a jungle. When I got there they asked me to play sessions. And they'd say 'Hey mother(expletive).' I said 'You can't be talking to me because my name is Buddy.' But after six weeks everybody was 'mother(expletive).' The wives didn't like to come to the studio because they thought we were gonna fight."
If they wanted to fight anybody, however, it would have been Leonard Chess and the other higher-ups at the record company. Artists like Willie Mabon and Eddie Boyd were blatantly ripped off by executives. The same thing happened to Guy.
Songwriter/performer/producer Willie Dixon would hear one of my songs and say that's pretty good but there's no punch line," Guy said.
A phrase might be changed and suddenly someone else would be credited as the songwriter.
Guy was treated far differently in 1965 when he went to Britain and toured with The Yardbirds. Rod Stewart traveled with Guy serving as his personal valet.
"The rest of the world knew us but nobody knew us in the United States," Guy said.
After the guitar style of Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Brian Jones of the bands Cream and the Rolling Stones generated commercial success, Leonard Chess knew he had made a terrible mistake constraining Guy.
Hendrix copied Guy's on-stage theatrics with the guitar and moved to England where he became a star.
Beck reportedly said "(Guy) transcended blues and started becoming theater. It was high art, kind of like drama theater when he played. 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."
Lonnie Brooks called Guy "the bravest guitar player I've ever seen on a bandstand." And Vaughan said, "Without Buddy Guy there would be no Stevie Ray Vaughan."
At Guy's 2005 induction into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame, Clapton said, "(Guy) was for me what Elvis was for most other people. My course was set, and he was my pilot."
While he'd always had respect from his peers, Guy finally had creative freedom in 1990 when he signed with Silvertone. Starting with "Damn Right I've Got The Blues," Guy's first three albums won Grammys.
Today Guy finally has the notoriety he deserves, although there are always reminders of the bluesman's misfortune.
When he spoke with Lake Tahoe Action last week he was back at his old hometown where he had just had a meeting with Baton Rouge Mayor Melvin Holden. A city museum honoring its blues artists like Slim Harpo, Lightning Slim, Guy and Tab Benoit is in the works. Guy was also in town to be filmed in a movie, the first he's done with speaking lines.
The movie's producers said they didn't want to use a song Guy suggested to be used, "Let Me Love You Baby," because their research told them it was written by Willie Dixon.
Guy said Dixon did make a contribution to the song.
"Willie Dixon changed one word," Guy said.