Buddy Guy, 87, On Farewell Tour, Chess Records And City Of Chicago

In 1957, at the age of just 21, Buddy Guy left Louisiana for Chicago in search of the blues.

Born to sharecroppers in Lettsworth, Louisiana, not far from the Mississippi border, Guy worked on the farm.

While he channeled Guitar Slim in his frenetic, often distorted playing of the electric guitar, influencing everyone from Eric Clapton to Jimi Hendrix, Guy’s childhood home didn’t have electricity until he was about 12 years old.

Arriving in Chicago at 21 allowed him to enter the blues clubs, where he’d overcome his shyness thanks to encounters with luminaries like Muddy Waters, eventually recording with vaunted Chicago-based label Chess Records, where he struggled to breakout, continuing to hone his unique playing style.

Driving a tow truck during his earliest days in Chicago, a period which included the infamous 1967 Chicago blizzard, Guy struck out on his own in 1972, launching his own club the Checkerboard Lounge.

By 1989, he established his current venue Buddy Guy’s Legends, heading north from 43rd Street to the city’s South Loop (moving it a block up Wabash to a new location in 2010).

In the midst of a farewell tour, a lengthy affair which takes him across North America into early September, including stops in New Hampshire and New York this weekend, Guy is finally pondering the idea of easing up on the travel — as he eyes his 88th birthday this July.

Following recent recording sessions in Nashville, Guy can be found holding court at Legends most nights when he’s not on tour, performing a residency each January at the club.

During his most recent January run, Legends live streamed the sold out engagements for the first time. Fans watched online as Guy, ever the showman, left the stage to mix it up with the crowd, performing outside on Wabash Avenue for passersby before hitting the bar for a quick drink en route back to the stage.

Joined by fellow bluesman Bobby Rush, 90, on opening night, Guy and his band wrapped up the residency alongside his daughter Carlise and the NuBlu Band, performing in front of fans from Brazil, Singapore and England who made the pilgrimage to the Chicago blues fixture.

Recently announced as the headlining act for Chicago Blues Fest this June, Guy is clear on what the city of Chicago means to him today.

“You know, that’s so special,” said Guy of performing again at Chicago Blues Fest. “This is the only free one throughout the world. I play ‘em all over the world. There’s no more,” he explained. “Even the birds got more sense than I got, man. A lot of them leave and go south when we get this kind of weather,” said the guitarist with a chuckle. “I looked at Muddy and Wolf. Little Walter from Louisiana. Bobby Rush is from Louisiana. I said, ‘Now if they’re here and they ain’t screaming about how cold it gets, what the hell am I worried about?’ I said, ‘I’m gonna stay here. Because I just love what I’m listening to.’”

I spoke with Buddy Guy about his current farewell tour, aging gracefully, life at Legends and his continual desire to learn. A transcript of our phone conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows below.

Jim Ryan: Hi, Buddy. Good morning. How are you?

Buddy Guy: Well, I’m gonna tell you like I told some people in the club last night. If I tell you I’m OK, I’d be lying to you! (Laughs)

Ryan: Well, I’m sorry to hear that!

Guy: No, no. Before we get into it… In my younger days - in my teenage years through my 20s and 30s - I never hung out with nobody my age. Because I didn’t think they could teach me something. I always hung out with guys 20 and 30 years older than me. And they always used to look at me and say, “Boy, wait until you hit my age…”

But they’ve all passed away and I can’t thank them now! I’d like to thank them for telling me the truth!

Ryan: I’m 44. So, I’m about halfway to you… Are you telling me it’s gonna get worse?

Guy: You better enjoy it while you can, man!

I make a joke out of it. I don’t know how long you’ve kept a car, how old it got. But if you keep it a long time, it goes to rattling. You put a screw in to stop that rattling. But as soon as you turn the corner, another screw will pop out and you’ve got to put another one in. It just continues to keep on rattling.

Ryan: How was the January residency?

Guy: I started that because throughout my years when I didn’t have a name - I was just playing locally around here with mostly local guys - and every January, the weather would be so bad that if you did try to travel around in a little station wagon, it’d be snowing. And so I just said, “Well, I’m not gonna try to go on the road that month. I’ll just stay and play.” And, finally, I got a little club in 1972 called the Checkerboard. And I just said I would play the whole month there.

Now, people have gotten used to that. I have my crew that asks questions [on stage before shows] in my club. My club is one of the last surviving pretty good-sized blues clubs in the country - because most of them done collapsed. But it started around 40 or 50%. Would you believe now that my club, every night, and not even January - but every night my club is about 80 to 90% from outside Chicago. I can’t believe it. They were asking it last night. People from other states just flock in because you don’t have this kind of club that’s survived - even before COVID. Joliet is about, what, 40 miles from here? They used to have great clubs. Gary, Indiana used to have blues clubs. None of that survived. California is the same way. In New York, B.B. King’s club closed down. Long Island, all of them are gone now.

You have to take a taxi now - because you don’t hardly have any more all night public transportation. Chicago used to have a 24/7 stockyard and a 24/7 steel mill. And you could catch a bus at 1 AM. And it was full! So, you could go get you a couple of double shots and you didn’t have to drive! You could catch the bus home. That ain’t never coming back I don’t think.

My club is downtown near the hotels and I think that helps a bit.

Ryan: Well, you’ve toured relentlessly now for decades. What’s it like finally pulling back on the travel end of that a bit?

Guy: I keep telling young kids now - one was in my club last night - if you give up, you ain’t got a chance.

Do you know the worst snowstorm in Chicago was in 1967? Do you know what I was doing then? I was driving a tow truck and playing my guitar at night. That day, it snowed so bad that I couldn’t leave. I just slept in the tow truck and played my guitar for the three people in the club. I got up in the morning and went back to driving the tow truck and moving snow. Somebody said to me, “You ain’t nothing but a fool, man. You ain’t making no money with the guitar!” But I just loved what I was doing, man - and I didn’t quit.

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I’ll be 88 years old this year. And I’m thinking about maybe just playing a few festivals after this year. Because your mind ain’t the same. You can’t remember like you used to. I’ve got some songs and I’m going in the studio this Wednesday. The late Tyrone Davis. Me and him, when he was still here, when he was still alive, we’d sit up and talk in the club till sunrise. He said, “Man, it used to be you could give me a song, and I could look at it twice and throw it away and I’d remember it all! Now I can keep it for six months and I can’t remember.” I remember B.B. King doing that in his last days of his life. He would sing the same song six or seven times a night. But his sidemen and all his staff was afraid to tell him. I’ve got my staff now and I say, “If I go to do that, just remind me.” Because your mind just ain’t what it was when you was in your 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s.

I want to go out in good style. I don’t want to disappoint somebody who done paid to see me. If I ain’t able to give them their money’s worth? Well, I’m thinking about that now while I’m in my right mind. I want to leave in good standing.

Ryan: Growing up in Louisiana, how important was the radio in terms of exposing you to different sounds and different stories at an early age?

Guy: First of all, it was a long time before my dad was able to get a radio. I know you ain’t old enough to know. A radio with a battery. He had to go up on top of the house and put a line like a clothesline from one end to the other. If it were cloudy, you couldn’t hear nothing but static. If it was raining, you couldn’t hear nothing but static.

So, my first blues was coming out of Tennessee. It was called Randy’s Record Shop. That’s when the Chess brothers started coming up with playing the blues. A 78 [RPM record] then, I think, was 79 cents or something like that. You could order it and they would mail it. Now that old 78, if you dropped it, it would crash. You had to be careful with those records back then! There were no 45s. It was just straight 78s.

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The old record players… If you had one, you had to wind it up with the spring. I think my daddy finally got one electric line in the house. That was probably around 1947 or 1948. I was about 11 or 12 years old. That’s when we finally got an old phonograph. You had to plug it in and put the needle in it to play the record. And when the needle wore out, I used to put a straw in my mouth and just hold my teeth on it as the record was spinning and you could hear it. He had Lightnin’ Hopkins and Robert Johnson - all the old players. They were playing acoustic.

Before B.B. King died, our joke was “Man, I used to be driving a tractor for a dollar a day.” And an acoustic guitar then was $1.98 or $2.98. And I said, “Man, you put the guitar so high I had to buy a guitar on terms!” It took me a long time to be able to get there. As a matter of fact, a guy bought me my first one. Because I couldn’t afford it with what I was making on the farm.

Ryan: When you moved to Chicago at 21, what were some of the opportunities that existed for you that you were not going to find in Louisiana?

Guy: Watching Muddy Waters. I was telling somebody that last night. I knew I had to wait until I hit 21 to get into the clubs. Man, I walked into the clubs and I saw Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Wells, Muddy Waters. Most of them is not living no more.

But when you went in the clubs, you had to buy a beer. I didn’t even drink then. Muddy Waters and them taught me how to drink. “Here, drink this wine. Drink this schoolboy scotch and you won’t be shy!”

I was almost too shy to even try to sing. When you was talking to Muddy Waters like you’s talking to me, you’d be patting your feet!

Ryan: Is there a moment you recall getting to Chicago when you realized you were building a career - something sustainable that wasn’t just going to be a constant struggle?

Guy: If you watch this blues channel on Music Choice, the Chess people had their big record company.

When the Rolling Stones came over to try and do a demo with Chess before they got famous, I was in there doing a record called “My Time After Awhile.” And I said, “I ain’t never seen no man with this long hair and these high heel boots on.” I wanted to turn my amplifier up with a little feedback. And they said, “Don’t nobody want to hear that noise!”

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Now, when the British heard me… I went there in 1965 and played with The Yardbirds. They just flew me there by myself. Because I had played some licks with the Wolf, the Muddys, the Little Walters and the Sonny Boys. Well, they was picking my little licks out. But I don’t know this. Finally, Leonard Chess heard that.

He called me. I had never talked to him in the studio. He said to Willie Dixon, “Tell him to put a suit on and come down here.” I said, “Well, I guess I’m through with Chess now.” But he wanted to talk to me and so I went on down there and walked in the office. I think it might have been a Jimi Hendrix lick. Very easily could’ve been Eric Clapton with the Cream. But [Leonard] said, “You listening to this?” I said, “So what?” He said, “Them are your licks! You brought that here and we was too f—ing dumb to listen to it. Now you can do what you want.”

Leonard didn’t live too long past that. And I went to Vanguard [Records] and I got my little break. I could quit driving the tow truck then.

Ryan: You’ve said a word here a few times during our conversation and that’s “learn.” And I’ve heard you use that word a lot - that it’s important to keep learning. Even this far along, several decades in, how has that approach continued to benefit you?

Guy: I think everything I did back then was important. Because there were so many great guitar players that could out play me, man. And I was trying to learn from every one of them. I saw Guitar Slim before I left Louisiana. I saw B.B. King. I saw Big Joe Turner and T-Bone Walker. And I said, “If I could ever just learn how to do it like that…”

After I saw Guitar Slim, he was wild and crazy. I saw B.B. King and he was smooth. And I said, “Lord, I would like to play like B.B. King - but I want to act like Guitar Slim!” So, I was using that Guitar Slim thing. All of them were sitting in chairs. And Guitar Slim walked on to the stage. And that’s where I got my idea.

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So, when I got a chance - when they called me up because they found out I could play one lick like B.B. and another like John Lee Hooker - they said, “That little old boy here from Louisiana can play!” They’d call me on the stage. And they had the music stands. I thought they were reading music - but they weren’t. It was fake! They didn’t have no sheets. Here I am looking up there saying, “Oh s—t, I gotta learn how to read music or I ain’t gonna be around long…” I come to find out, they wasn’t even reading music, man! I was playing the same note all the time - but it worked.

Strangely enough, do you know when they found out I could play? I couldn’t hide it. I would like to watch them. I didn’t want them to know because they were going to call me up there! And every time I tried to stay in the back of the club and just listen and steal a lick from them, they’d find out. And they would curse! The Chess brothers would call you an “mf.” They would get on the microphone and call me that! “Come on up here, little motherf—er. I want you to play with me!” I’d say, “Man, I come here to learn something from you!”

Ryan: Sometimes, I’ll hear people talk about the blues with a negative connotation. But when I see you play the blues, it looks like unbridled joy. It’s uplifting. What does the blues mean to you?

Guy: You know, I said that last night from the stage. I just went up to my club and sang. But I watch people. When I go to the stage, I forget about myself. I look out. Do you ever notice a person with a frown on their face? Well, maybe you could say a joke or something and they’ll smile and that frown will leave. That’s the way I play. When I go to the stage, I intend to take that frown off your face. And if I don’t, you will see me changing notes! I don’t hardly rehearse with my band. My band has to just watch me. I better try something else. And all of the sudden, I’ll try something tricky.

Let me give you another example. Do you know that some nights, I go to the stage and play and walk off. And two days later, a guy will come to see me play and say, “I watched you last night. You must not have been feeling good.” And I’ll say, “Oh my god…” Because I thought I played well. Then there are times when I go up to the stage and thought I played bad. But another guy will come up and say, “Man, you was on last night!” And, so, I just think, “I might as well just forget this, close my eyes and go out there and try to take the frown off your face.”

Because you can’t ever please everybody - but you can try.