'I will do anything possible to keep the blues alive," declares legendary singer/guitarist Buddy Guy. It's the last thing he says during a 25-minute phone interview, in which he good-naturedly rambles between telling old stories and fretting over the future of the blues.
Radio has turned a deaf ear to the music, he says; blues is only delivered by word of mouth. "A blues record got to make it on its own," he says. "Chess Records [the fabled Chicago blues label] used to call me and say, 'We gonna break this record' — see to it that [radio] played the hell out of it. Kids now go into a record store and ask for something different, no one's gonna point 'em to Buddy Guy."
The flamboyant performer — the living bridge between such past greats as Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins, Howlin' Wolf et al, and today's Strat stranglers — is 67, fit, vibrant and looking to carry the blues torch for at least the near future. But what happens after he dies, or becomes too infirm to perform?
"It worries me," he says. "'Til my kids got 21, they didn't know who I was. They didn't know shit about me until they walked into my club [Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago]. They cried. Black kids ain't into it. They hear Ludacris, Jay Z. Young girls and young boys don't wanna play no blues."
That's why blues fans should genuflect to Buddy Guy.
He grew up a country boy near Baton Rouge, La. The family's sharecropper home didn't have electricity. At age 15, he had a battery radio ("when it started raining you couldn't hear shit no way"), and would postpone sandlot baseball games whenever blues came on his transistor box. He soaked up Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, B.B King, Son House, John Lee Hooker and others. "I was about 16 the first time I ever saw electric guitar," he says. "Up to that point it was acoustic stuff at Saturday night fish fries. Lightnin' Slim came with his electric and I thought it was a joke. It blew my mind."
Like so many other Southern blacks after World War II, Guy migrated to Chicago, not to land factory work like most, but to break into the music biz. In 1957, the Windy City was a hoppin' blues town, tough for a young newcomer to gain a rep. He looked around and saw a lot of the city's elite musicians sitting down during their sets. "These guys could outplay me, but they couldn't outdo me," Guy says with a chuckle.
Guy's guitar battle at the Blue Flame club in 1958, where he bested hotshots Otis Rush and Magic Sam, is the stuff of blues lore. "I remember seein' Guitar Slim in New Orleans and he was wild and crazy," Guy recounts. "So I get to the battle and it was 2 feet of snow outside, and I had this 100-foot cord. I brought the guitar outside in the snow, came back with snow up to my knees. I was doing the wildest type of playin'."
Most accounts have Guy playing the slow blues "Sweet Little Angel" in the second slot, where he threw his guitar on the floor and stomped on it, and played it after he hung it from the rafters.
He was declared the winner, his first step toward becoming a legend.
Forty-five years later, Guy released his current album, Blues Singer (Silvertone), an all-acoustic rendering of blues standards like "Hard Time Killing Floor," "I Love the Life I Live," "Crawlin' Kingsnake" and others. The performances place emphasis on Guy's still formidable singing, whether it's his ghostly falsetto, lusty belt or measured moan.
The artistic model for Blues Singer was a 1963 Muddy Waters album called Folk Singer. Leonard Chess wanted to capitalize on the folk boom of the time and directed Waters to gather a bunch of his old Mississippi mates and cut some down-home country blues. Instead, Waters called in Guy, then known for his burgeoning guitar pyrotechnics. Chess was apoplectic. "Motherfucker, I told you I wanted somebody who could play this old shit," Chess bellowed at Waters. After 45 minutes, the label head was dumbstruck at Guy's facility with vintage acoustic style.
Guy and Chess maintained a prickly relationship. The guitarist was beginning to use effects and feedback, and fill up space with a lot of notes that landed outside standard blues practice. "I'd come in for a session and be tunin' up and [Chess] would say 'cut that shit out' when I'd turn up my amp," Guy says. "Before he died, he told [bassist/ songwriter] Willie Dixon, 'Bring that motherfucker down here.' I showed up and Chess says, 'I want you to kick me in my ass.' He put on some Cream and Hendrix. 'We're the dumbest motherfuckers. You been trying to tell us this shit works and now these motherfuckers making millions. He said, 'From now on you got freedom at Chess.'"
That was 1969. Leonard Chess died before he could make good on his word.
Guy found his freedom elsewhere, and influenced a legion of younger players, from Eric Clapton (who hails Guy as his all-time favorite) to Stevie Ray Vaughan and scores of others. In fact, for his Tampa Bay Blues Festival performance, Guy will be backed by the late Vaughan's old rhythm section, Double Trouble, along with second guitarist James Mathus.
The book on Buddy Guy is that he still brings it every night, refuses to phone in a gig. After so many shows, where does he find the inspiration? "I've dedicated my life to the blues," he answers matter-of-factly. "I get invited to play. Sometimes [the weather's] too hot, sometimes it's too cold. But I look out there and see all these people come to see me perform. If you look at 25 years ago, there was a handful of us [blues legends] left. Now there ain't but two: me and B.B. King, and we ain't babies anymore. I been called. It's like a doctor. I got to go. I can't say send somebody else."
Contact Senior Writer Eric Snider at 813-248-8888, ext. 114, or eric.snider@weeklyplanet.com.
TAMPA BAY BLUES FESTIVALFRIDAY, APRIL 2
3-4 p.m., Renee Austin The fest kicks off with a feisty newcomer with a five-octave vocal range. Austin just released her Blind Pig Records debut, Sweet Talk. The singer grew up in Texas, then relocated to Minneapolis, where she established herself as one of the city's top blues/R&B singers.
4:30-6 p.m., Ronnie Baker Brooks The axe-slingin' begins. The 37-year-old Brooks, son of renowned bluesman Lonnie Brooks, was born in Chicago, the birthplace of guitar-heavy electric blues. At 19, Ronnie joined his pops on the road, handling merch, lugging gear and playing one song each gig. In '99, he became his father's fulltime bandleader, and 10 years later he formed his own band. Ronnie Baker Brooks has been hailed by many blues periodicals as a standard-bearer for the next generation of Chicago blues greats.
6:30-8 p.m., Walter Trout This guy's wowed the blues fest before with his spirited guitar work and vocals. He even released a concert CD, Live Trout, recorded at the fest about four years ago. If you like blistering blues-rock guitar, Trout's your man.
8:30-10 p.m., Susan Tedeschi Through the ages, women blues performers have largely been relegated to the microphone. Lately, though, several gifted women are fronting bands with vocals and guitar. Tedeschi is in the front rank of these trailblazers. She doesn't restrict herself to straight blues, but broadens the palette with rock, R&B and pop.
SATURDAY, APRIL 3
Noon-12:45 p.m., Sean Chambers Kudos to Ross for keeping some local presence at his event. Chambers has played blues clubs around Tampa Bay for many years, first as a Stevie Ray Vaughan acolyte then as his own man, with an aggressive, rock-leaning style.
1-2 p.m., Carl Weathersby Born in small-town Mississippi and raised in Chicago, Weathersby found his biggest musical influence through his father, a man he knew as a diesel mechanic named Albert. That turned out to be certified blues legend Albert King. Weathersby has several CDs to his credit that showcase his hearty, tradition-minded Chicago style.
2:30-4 p.m., Betty LaVette Blues fest producer Ross has tabbed LaVette as his sleeper act. The New York Times has waxed, "Classic soul singing doesn't get any better." And she's hot, having been nominated this year for four W.C. Handy Awards. R&B aficionados practically hyperventilate when they talk about the under-heralded diva, who released her first single in 1962 on Atlantic. Nowadays, her voice is lusty and full of sass.
4:30-6 p.m., Chris Duarte He was part of the post-SRV frenzy of the '90s. The bushy-haired Strat man plays explosive blues-rock and has all the flashy moves. The native of San Antonio, Texas, was reared on punk and hard-rock, but at age 16 encountered Vaughan while the future legend was still grinding it out in Austin clubs. Duarte hasn't been the same since.
6:30-8 p.m., Charlie Musselwhite The harmonicat was part of the '60s American blues scene that spawned the likes of Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield. Reared on Windy City style, Musselwhite broke out in San Francisco during the hippie heyday. He's gone on to be a steady blues artist with an expansive catalogue. His new album, Sanctuary, is out on Realworld and is a refreshing break from hard blues strictures.
8:30-10 p.m., Buddy Guy with Double Trouble See accompanying story.
SUNDAY, APRIL 4
1-2 p.m., Backtrack Blues Band Long before he became the blues-fest maven, Chuck Ross sang and played harmonica for this long-standing Bay area band. After taking last year off, he and the fellas are back for an opening slot.
2:30-4 p.m, Anson Funderburgh & the Rockets Dallas-based guitarist Funderburgh melds his swinging Texas style with the deep Mississippi blues of vocalist/harmonica man Sam Myers. It makes for a high-energy hybrid that's been praised far and wide.
4:30-6 p.m., Bernard Allison The son of late great Luther Allison, Bernard was a bluesman practically from the womb. After apprenticing with Koko Taylor and others, the stinging guitarist and singer has forged a durable solo career.
6:30-8 p.m., Marcia Ball Four women in the fest? Better watch out, Chuck, people might start calling you a feminist. Ball, a statuesque singer/pianist who grew up on the border between Louisiana and Texas, blends blues, swamp-rock, New Orleans R&B, boogie and other styles, all wrapped in a supercharged stage show.
8:30-10 p.m., Otis Clay Another vital break from wall-to-wall guitars, Clay is a brawny soul singer whose commercial pinnacle occurred in the early '70s when he scored some R&B hits on Hi Records, which Al Green called home at the time. Clay will deliver an exciting, horn-enhanced set of Southern soul and blues.
Tampa Bay Blues Festival, Vinoy Park, St. Petersburg. Friday, April 2 through Sunday, April 4. Ticket prices: Friday and Sunday, $20; Saturday, $25; three-day pass ($50) available at the gate Friday only. Free shuttle service available to and from parking lots at Progress Energy Park and the Bayfront Center. For further details, go to www.tampabaybluesfest.com.
This article appears in Apr 1-7, 2004.