Happy Birthday to "*Buddy Guy*":http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:kiftxq95ldke, born on this day in 1936 in Lettsworth, Louisiana. Jimi Hendrix stated that Buddy Guy was a huge influence on his playing, and Eric Clapton has called him the greatest blues guitarist ever (hence my cheekiness in the post title). With Muddy Waters as a mentor, and the likes of Freddy King, Magic Sam and Otis Rush as musical compatriots, it stands to reason that Guy would become a blues force to contend with.I confess that I'm short on time today, so I'm not going to attempt my usual biographical sketch of this birthday boy. But I encourage you to check out the AllMusic.com bio I've linked to above, and if you like the video below, to browse YouTube for other Buddy Guy videos - there are many of them, from many different eras in Buddy's career.The video I'm including here is from about 1996, when Buddy Guy recorded a special performance at his own club Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago, backed up by guitarist G.E. Smith and the Saturday Night Live Band. That may come off as a bit schlocky to you, but listen to the performance first. Playing Elmore James' "I Can't Hold Out," the band is tight, the horn section adds so much punch, and even ol' G.E.'s solo isn't too bad despite his tendency to mug. Most importantly, Buddy sounds great - both vocally and on his trademark polka-dot guitar.
mousetrap says
Okay...just 'cause I like all you swell people so much, I thought I'd toss a little bonus into the mix. Here's a more recent video clip of Buddy, shifting gears to play in an acoustic context and take us back to the roots of the blues - and his own roots, in fact. "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl"...hope you like it.
dermahrk says
I have a couple of Buddy's CDs, and have seen multiple vids of live performances. I find him to be maddeningly inconsistent. Great one moment, terrible the next.
mousetrap says
Hi, dermahrk - AAARGH! I didn't get notified of your comment! Guess I was being too optimistic about how things were working here...
Anyway, had I tried to pull together a short bio of Buddy, this would have been one of the points mentioned - apparently he has always been unpredictable in his live performances. In much earlier years the variability had more to do with the style and mood of a given performance - he might spend one set mimicking Howlin' Wolf and Guitar Slim, then in the next set switch things up and crank out some intense soul blues. These days it seems to be more a question of how seriously he treats each show - he can come out and just play single notes over an incessant backbeat and grin at the crowd to get them stirred up, while at other times he'll seem more directly concerned with demonstrating just why he's so revered by other guitarists and play some serious, focused blues. My brother and I were disappointed to find him in that former mode when he appeared at our local blues festival a couple years ago. I agree that it's maddening, because one knows what he's capable of.
I do think most of his recent albums have been strong, so there's some comfort there...
mezz says
hmmm...
could be mousetrap's bro finally figured out how to "weigh in"....
so further to all that.... the worst thing about buddy's inconsistencies (for me) are that they are so off-putting, especially (as mousetrap suggests) knowing how incendiary and stratospheric he still can be when for whatever unknowable reason he chooses to be "on".
for me, it doesn't help seeing one of the coolest dudes who ever walked taking the stage in an elvis-white jumpsuit- okay, overalls, whatever... but i swallow and let that slide... then i'll find myself taking exception to his exhortations of: "i need a little he'p, y'all..."- no you don't buddy, who you shucking here? you truly are one of the greatest blues guitarists of all time, and i have not paid my nickel to hear your journeyman rhythm guitarist taking solos that should be yours.
then of course (at this point i invariably am ready to walk) there are (again, as moustrap has noted) the extended-long-past-the-point-of-artistic-validity single note "solos", maybe mixed with some sotto-voce asides, usually "shee-it!" or the like, i suppose to remind us how salty he really is, even in those absurd coveralls....
and then, and only then (now remember, this is on one of his bad nights) is it possible for him to suddenly blaze forth with something mind-melting, scorching, rhythmically/propulsively perfect, incredibly precise, with oceans of dynamics.... maybe all in the space of 30 seconds (remember, this is a bad night we're talking about here...), before returning to the shuck and jive buddy show....
the thing is (as a measure of self-defense, should i have the misfortune to encounter mr. guy in a dark alley in the near future), a year or so after the portland waterfront blues fest performance my brother and i walked away from so disappointed less than halfway through the set, it appeared online in its entirety on a newsgroup blues mp3's site.... and to LISTEN to it, buddy was for the most part brilliant....
maybe he was least brilliant in the early going, the parts that led us to walk, but even mixed into those numbers (not having to watch his mugging, never mind g.e. smith's) was a lot more good shee-it than i recall hearing. so i dunno...
but one performance i'll never forget, the one that'll keep me coming back until buddy finally leaves us, happened 20+ years ago in santa cruz, the night of an antone's revue package show.
buddy shared the bill with james cotton (and many others, but this was the meat for me). when james' set came up, the mc did his intro.... "and now..... jaaaaaaames cotton! the KING of the blues harmonica, etc....."
but no james.
so he does it a couple more times... finally cotton finds his way to the stage, clearly and totally hammered, literally incapacitated. to make things worse, after several painful minutes clearly spent trying to figure out where the hell he even IS, he pulls out a harmonica- and can barely get a pffffttt! out of it.
anyway, a bad night for james... in those days he could definitely have 'em. he was finally helped off the stage.
maybe a half-dozen heartbeats later buddy guy jumped up there, and he ripped the roof off- he did it all- the blistering, in-yo-face vocals, and the endless volumes of hendrix-dwarfing guitar brilliance... SUCH a sound, SUCH a performance he put on...
and here's the kicker- no prima donna shee-it here- he didn't just fill the james cotton set and call it an early night- he just kept on burning right into and through his own set... i'm sure it was a solid 3-hours of jaw-droppingly definitive blues.
so happy birthday, buddy, and thanks forever for that one....
mousetrap says
Yeah! Mezz is in the MOG house! And he makes his entrance in his true literate, knowledgeable, reflective, and slightly curmudgeonly style. Keep the comments coming, good sir! And how about a full-fledged post sometime, eh mezz?
Spike says
Mezz does mesmerize.
Great post. It appears that Guy's voice and guitar-playing can still be top-notch when he applies himself, late in life. Mired in his early work, I appreciate the update.
yotochan says
He's lucky to be surrounded by so much talent
and be in the right place at the right time. Very rare
for me to really like a number of his, I always considered
him just another session guy. (Like that?) A secondary
talent for me and I use to go to his club.
Spike says
I love his two Artistic singles and his Chess recordings as much as the recordings of any of his generation of modern blues singer-guitarists, such as Otis Rush or Magic Sam. This 1958 item was his second of two Artistic singles. On rhythm guitar is Otis Rush, bass is Willie Dixon and drums are Odie Payne. The precision, intense energy and punch of this is a recording engineer's dream.
Happy Birthday to "*Buddy Guy*":http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:kiftxq95ldke, born on this day in 1936 in Lettsworth, Louisiana. Jimi Hendrix stated that Buddy Guy was a huge influence on his playing, and Eric Clapton has called him the greatest blues guitarist ever (hence my cheekiness in the post title). With Muddy Waters as a mentor, and the likes of Freddy King, Magic Sam and Otis Rush as musical compatriots, it stands to reason that Guy would become a blues force to contend with.I confess that I'm short on time today, so I'm not going to attempt my usual biographical sketch of this birthday boy. But I encourage you to check out the AllMusic.com bio I've linked to above, and if you like the video below, to browse YouTube for other Buddy Guy videos - there are many of them, from many different eras in Buddy's career.The video I'm including here is from about 1996, when Buddy Guy recorded a special performance at his own club Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago, backed up by guitarist G.E. Smith and the Saturday Night Live Band. That may come off as a bit schlocky to you, but listen to the performance first. Playing Elmore James' "I Can't Hold Out," the band is tight, the horn section adds so much punch, and even ol' G.E.'s solo isn't too bad despite his tendency to mug. Most importantly, Buddy sounds great - both vocally and on his trademark polka-dot guitar.
Comments (17)