Perhaps the most important blues musician still touring today (I'd say tied with B.B. King) is Buddy Guy. Without a doubt the best showman to ever play the blues, and the biggest influence to all the rock guitar guys from the late 60's early 70's. Eric Clapton said "Buddy Guy was to me what Elvis was for others.He 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." Later blues great Stevie Ray Vaughan once said "Without Buddy Guy, there would be no Stevie Ray Vaughan." Ever wonder where Jimi Hendrix got his shtick from? As told on the Wiki page... Guy’s dramatic live shows used to involve much leaping off amplifiers; playing guitar with his feet, teeth, a handkerchief or a drumstick; playing guitar behind his back; playing guitar while hanging from the rafters by his ankles; and going on a walkabout into the audience on the end of a 150 foot guitar cord: cordless guitars were not yet available. Guy would sometimes begin his sets from inside the men’s washroom, all the while shaking up the house with his wild multi-fret bends and piercing, string-snapping attack. He would then get on stage and dive into his solos, maybe capping a run by flipping his guitar backwards and sliding the pickups over his T-shirt, laughing all the way.
Born in Louisiana 1936, and transplanted himself to Chicago in 1957, Buddy worked odd jobs, and played clubs at night. He said "I didn't even dream of saying, "One day you might hit the right note and not have to drive a tow truck anymore." I didn't plan this; I didn't see this. Because after I played with Muddy Waters and Little Walter and all those guys, I thought I had to go right to bed. I didn't care about no record or nothing, and I just said, I met the guy I come here to meet. And that was high as I could go." Trained in the school of Muddy, meant alot in Chicago in the late 50's early 60's. Otis Rush, Junior Wells, Little Walter, Jimmy Rogers, James Cotton, Otis Spann, Pinetop Perkins, all played/recorded with the late great Muddy Waters. I checked out youtube, there's alot of vids from various live perfomances, but I felt they didn't do the man justice. I'll just put up a great old track from his Complete Chess Studio Recordings double cd, American Bandstand.
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Blue, the planets are lined up. Ben Felton just posted a fabulous live vid of Buddy and Jr Wells.
http://www2.mog.com/Ben_FELTEN/blog_post/54029
It's worth giving props to his acoustic work on Muddy Waters, Folk Singer. The liner notes tell a great story of Muddy having to convince Marshall Chess to let Buddy play acoustic behind him, since Marshall knew him as the wild guy you describe above. It's such sympathetic playing.
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Thanks for this, I just was chatting about Crash a while back about how I dont have enough blues in my collection. I have started to get more and more, and the music seems so right for almost any occasion.
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That "Guy" was a model for generations of axe tinglers, some of them would never admit it but well it is a fact ;-))) nice post Blue !!
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I'll admit to having been dissapointed by the last couple of times I saw Guy live. He's still a hall of a showman, but his insistance on playing worn-out classics instead of his own - often superb - repertoire is annoying.
The first concert of his I saw, though... WOW !
I have nearly all of his records available on CD (including, and they are not his worse, a lot of Junior Wells' early albums), and if anyone wants to look into it, I'd recommend :
Acoustic: - Muddy Waters Folk Singer (as mentioned by Jonh above, a stunning collaboration) - Alone & Acoustic (rough and down home, with Junior Wells on harp and shared vocals)
Electric: - A Man and the Blues (his best 60s album IMO, with a mournful slow One Room Country Shack that will trun your spine to jelly - also a superb Otis Spann collaboration)
- Drinkin TNT and Smoking Dynamite (a 70s live that only has two tracks with Buddy singing and him backing Junior Wells on the rest, but man, what a concert...)
- Slippin' In (his first three Silvertone records in the 90s are pretty good, but that one's my favourite. It's got punch and it's got pathos.)
There are many many more good things to be had in his discography, but these are as good a starting point as any !
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Thanks for this. I had the pleasure of seeing Buddy Guy perform for free in Detroit a few summers ago and it remains one of the highlights of my musical fandom, right up there with sitting front row at a Louie Bellson jazz drumming workshop. No matter how oversaturated the music industry becomes, we cannot forget the originals!!!