Buddy Guy

Buddy Guy
a.k.a. George Guy

BLUES GUY
Chicago Legend Buddy Guy Makes an Acoustic Interlude
Singer and guitarist Buddy Guy is one of the few active players from the golden age of the Chicago blues, the era of giants Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. They may be gone, but Guy's alive, well, and playing better than ever. In fact, he's been riding a career revival in the '90s with a repertoire that seamlessly blends R&B heartbreakers, bawdy rockers, and down-home blues. For Blues Singer, the noted electric guitarist returns to his roots in acoustic blues, paying tribute to Muddy's Folk Singer album, on which he played some 40 years ago. Barnes & Noble.com's Roberta Penn spoke with this living legend, a man who still tells it just like he sees it.

Barnes & Noble.com: What made you decide to go more acoustic for Blues Singer?

Buddy Guy: I’ve never forgotten doing something with Muddy Waters in '63 or '64, and my record company said, “You remember that? Let’s try that acoustic. You know there are a lot of girls doing that folk stuff.” And every time I get a change to go in the studio, I do it.

B&N.com: The guys in the studio aren’t your touring band. How did you pick who would play with you for this CD?

BG: The bassist and drummer are from Dylan’s band, and the drummer was with the Squirrel Nut Zippers -- he’s from North Carolina.

B&N.com: How did you get connected with drummer Jimbo Mathus? He worked with you on both Sweet Tea and Blues Singer.

BG: He was opening a lot of shows for me. He’s been studying Mississippi blues more than I have. The producer called him in for Sweet Tea. Sometimes people ask me why I have white musicians in my bands, but if someone can play, music doesn’t have a color. I had to be taught myself, when I was growing up in Louisiana. I listened to country and western, gospel, and I got a lot of licks off that. When I first got a radio I didn’t know if the musicians were black or white. I didn’t give a damn about that.

B&N.com: There was an article in a recent New York Times that said when Muddy Waters went back to playing acoustic for Folk Singer, the record companies were trying to sell him to a more affluent crowd, and that Blues Singer. is also a watered-down version of the blues and is an effort to do that. What’s your opinion of that theory?

BG: With journalists, their job is to sell a paper, and my job is to sell records. I run into that in a lot of different circumstances. Once I was checking to hotel and a couple saw my ring with Blues on it. They said, “You play blues. That music is so sad.” I gave them tickets to the show, and they came up afterwards and said, “You didn’t play one sad song.”

B&N.com: What do you remember about the recording date for Muddy’s Folk Singer?

BG: That was the heyday of Chess Records, and Muddy was It. The Chess Brothers said they’d heard college students were buying folk. They set the session up early in the morning. Muddy called me that morning and said, “Get up, motherf**ker, and come on down to Chess. I want you to do a session with me.” I was 23 or 24, and the producer said, “We told you to go get an old guy.” But once I started playing, the whole studio shocked and said, “How’d you learn that?” It was Muddy’s old stuff, which he had done on acoustic, and he knew I knew how to do it.

B&N.com: Over the past decade or so you’ve played a lot of rock ‘n’ roll in your concerts, doing Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton material. Why have you done that?

BG: No I was doing Buddy Guy. They come here from England and invaded us by copying me and the Chicago scene. I got the music from Guitar Slim originally, and the British guys got it in the '60s. The industry wouldn’t record me doing it, but they would record them, so people thought they started it. Back then, if you was an R&B singer like me, you had to play whoever was in the Top 10, whether it was Roy Orbison or Fats Domino. When I went into Chess with that sound and turned it up, they threw me out. Before Leonard Chess died, he called me in and played Cream and said, “I should have been listening to you.”

B&N.com: A lot of your fans think you should be only playing blues.

BG: I play what makes the audience happy. Once I played in Kentucky and read in the paper that Buddy Guy played white music. I don’t see no color. What the f**k is white music?

B&N.com: Will your live sets be more acoustic now that you’ve got Blues Singer out?

BG: No, I’m playing them both to try to please everybody, which ain’t possible. I’ve been doing acoustic for years. Look who’s out there now, me and B. B. King. We sat down together recently and agreed that we got to take it to people. We’ve got to get it played on radio stations so these young people can hear and go out and get it. Those college stations are the only ones playing it. I don’t care if I made the greatest record in the world, if nobody’s playing it but are playing Britney Spears and Rod Stewart.

B&N.com: The album’s last song, “Lonesome Home Blues,” is about going back home. Do you ever feel like returning to Louisiana, the place where you grew up? Or do you ever go back there?

BG: I’m sittin’ here now looking at real estate down there now. My whole family is still there. I’m going through a divorce now. This is the second one, and like baseball, I’m not gonna get three strikes. I’ve been living by myself for five years and I’m very comfortable. I can play my guitar when I want to.

July, 2003