Buddy Turns 90!!

Buddy Guy turned 90 on July 30th.  That's pretty amazing in itself, but the fact that the man continues to produce excellent music via new album releases or live performance is even more amazing.  I think his most recent release, Ain't Done With The Blues, might be his best release in at least 15 years.  He's still as much a force of nature on the guitar and vocals as he's ever been, still performing with a zest and energy that belies his advancing years.  He even gained a lot of attention appearing in last year's horror flick Sinners and getting a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance at this year's Oscars. 

We've written about Buddy Guy multiple times here at Friday Blues Fix, as you can see by a search of the blog.  Before you look, I apologize for some of the older posts that have messed up fonts.....I haven't figured out how to fix those....and also for those with videos that no longer play or audio clips that no longer play.....the audio clips are a major bone of contention for me since I put them on a site to share and the site shut down without allowing me to keep those files.  I haven't had time to go through all 500-something posts to make corrections, but I'm working on it......the texts within is still okay, but may be hard to read on some of the posts due to the goofy font changes.

Buddy Guy & Junior Wells - 1969 at Ann Arbor

Since we've covered him as much as we have, I thought I would skip the life story, which can be found on a couple of posts and just discuss Buddy Guy in general.  I have seen him probably as many times as I've seen any other blues artist, several times over a 20-25 year span, and he was one of the first blues guitarists I ever heard of, after B.B. King and Robert Johnson.  In articles and books about Eric Clapton, he referred to Buddy Guy numerous times, so I really wanted to hear more about him.

Back in those pre-internet days, information was hard to find and the blues itself had just started enjoying its resurgence after artists like SRV, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and Robert Cray began to become popular.  Once that happened, some music magazines began putting blues artists on their covers and publishing articles about them.  I finally tracked down some information on Guy via a couple of magazines in the late 80's......Living Blues and Guitar Player, both of which featured cover stories on Guy.

Also in the late 80's, MCA Records began reissuing some of Chess Records' old albums.  They started with releases from Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry (at least these were the first ones I happened to see).  They also began releasing a six volume set call The Blues that really opened my eyes and ears to the Chess Records lineup and catalog.  These volumes were where I first heard Buddy Guy and Volume 1 included his song "First Time I Met The Blues."  This tune was written by Little Brother Montgomery, who played piano on the track, and was released in 1960 as a single by Chess.  All in all, it was a pretty good introduction to Buddy Guy as a singer and guitarist and it certainly made me want to hear more.

Fortunately, additional reissues started appearing and various collections, such as Atlantic Blues: Chicago, which included several tracks teaming Guy with longtime partner Junior Wells, several reissues from Vanguard Records, including his wonderful A Man and the Blues (with Otis Spann on piano) and the incredible anthology set Chicago!  The Blues!  Today!, and also Delmark Records' albums, including Hoodoo Man Blues, both teaming Guy with Wells.  Chess Records also began reissuing some of their Buddy Guy collections.  One of my favorite finds at the time, at least in my more rock music-oriented days, was Alligator Records' reissue of Guy's album Stone Crazy!, originally released as The Blues Giant on the French label Isabel.  

However, like most blues artists at the time (late 80's), Guy hadn't released any new product in several years, so I tried to round up everything that I could find.  This was a trend that I ended up following for several artists and the digging deeper into the blues really expanded my listening and my knowledge of what was out there.  I really enjoyed this aspect of the blues....I was sort of a hunter-gatherer in the blues aisles at whatever record store I could find.

Of course, again fueled by the sudden resurgence in the popularity of the blues, Buddy Guy did get to record new material, beginning in 1991 with Damn Right I Got The Blues for Silvertone Records.  By this time, I'd been able to see Guy live, first with Junior Wells at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1989 and with his band at the Chunky Rhythm and Blues Festival on a hot July evening in 1990.  At Chunky, my future wife and I managed to make it all the way to the front of the stage to see him in all of his electric blues guitar glory.  

On his return to the studio, I was delighted to hear one of the best songs that he performed at Chunky that night, an almost-frantic cover of Eddie Boyd's "Five Long Years" that sounded just as good as it did on the stage the previous year.  The album was loaded with covers or updated versions of songs Guy had cut previously, but that was okay because a lot of people were hearing these songs for the first time by Guy.  It was also loaded with guest stars (Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Mark Knopfler, The Memphis Horns, etc...), but it was nearly impossible to upstage Buddy Guy on this return engagement.

Since 1991, Guy has released sixteen additional albums of new material, thirteen studio and three live (one acoustic with Junior Wells, and one that included three studio tracks).  And while there were some of these (Slippin' In, Last Time Around - Live at Legends, Sweet Tea, Born to Play Guitar, and Ain't Done With the Blues) that I liked more than others, they were all good quality releases, but the ones above are the ones that I play most often.  I think Guy has settled in nicely with his current producer/songwriter/drummer Tom Hambridge.  I think Hambridge really "gets" Guy as far as a songwriter goes and the production is an ideal fit for the blues and rock audiences that hear Guy these days.  

That being said, I actually prefer the earlier stuff when I choose to listen to Buddy Guy these days.  I wasn't necessarily this way when I first started listening to him, but I've sort of moved back to the earlier recordings from the Chess and Vanguard (Guy's time with Chess and Vanguard is a bit inconsistent because they really didn't know how to utilize him, but the good stuff is great and the lesser material is still solid, but maybe dated by today's standards) sessions, plus his work with Junior Wells that was released by Atlantic in the early 70's, their various Montreux shows, and on Evidence Records.  The two of them complimented each other so well.  

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy his current releases.....I think I've listened to Ain't Done With the Blues more than any of his newer releases other than Slippin' In, but he was in a bit of a slump before teaming up with Hambridge and I don't really think it was his fault as much as people/record companies/record execs/etc....trying to take him away from what he did best.  Hambridge has more or less taken the best of the early Buddy Guy and combined it with what modern audiences like to hear without compromising his talent.....even the guest stars on selected cuts usually works really well.

Buddy Guy and Christone "Kingfish" Ingram

I actually got to see him live around 2012 and it was an interesting audience.  Guy played at the MSU-Riley Center in Meridian.  Some of the Riley Center season ticket holders at that time were older folks who usually came to make an appearance, stayed about an hour and silently slipped out.  Well, Guy came out blasting, guitar screaming, drums crashing, screaming the vocals....the band was pumped up.  I've never seen so many blue-haired ladies making their way out of the theatre after five-ten minutes.  He was 76 when he appeared at the Riley Center, probably older than some of the departing audience, and bounced around the stage like he was 20 years younger.

My point is that we are very fortunate to have Buddy Guy still with us.  There have been a few blues artists who made as long or longer than him, but he still plays with an energy and enthusiasm that's palpable to his audience and that's probably what attracted a lot of us to his music in the first place.  It's still there.  He's a direct link, one of the few left, to the Chicago blues scene of the 1950's.  That's really hard to believe for someone who started listening to the blues some 40 years ago, but he's one of the last sources.  We're lucky to have him.

I really miss a lot of others who have pass away....I still really miss B.B. King and Junior Wells for sure, and Luther Allison was another favorite.  The Rolling Stones are still making music into their early 80's, but I'm not really sure that they will be when/if their 90's roll around....you never can tell.  Meanwhile, Buddy Guy rolls on like Old Man River.  Happy Birthday, Buddy!!  Hope to see you and hear you for many more years to come!!