Buddy Guy Biography

Buddy Guy has set the bar for blues performance for over 30 years. Buddy's 40-year career, which began in the Baton Rouge music scene in the 1950s, mixes high-octane guitar histrionics with unlimited onstage enthusiasm. Guy, like B.B. King, influenced guitarists such as Clapton and Hendrix. Writers have frequently mentioned Guy's connection to the blues, which contributes to his particular tormented singing style. Guy has received many Grammy nominations for albums such as Damn Right I've Got the Blues, Feels Like Rain, and Slippin In. Buddy Guy, along with Otis Rush and Magic Sam, were instrumental in ushering the blues guitar into the postmodern age. Guy was a famous session player as well as a successful solo performer, with a style that some compare to B.B. King's. Guy is claimed to have had a significant impact on Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton has named him the greatest blues guitarist of all time. In fact, few blues artists today can equal Guy's ability to create the ultimate blues statement with a guitar solo. Guy joined with Chess Records in 1960 and quickly rose to prominence as a session guitarist, supporting musicians such as Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller), and Koko Taylor. His solo single, Stone Crazy, peaked at number 12 on the R&B charts in 1962. Guy left Chess in 1967 and signed with Vanguard, where he released albums such as A Man and the Blues, This Is Buddy Guy, and Hold That Plane! He also established a working partnership with harpist Junior Wells. The pair was particularly popular among white blues enthusiasts in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Buddy could imitate Howlin' Wolf and Guitar Slim in one set and then sink into a study of soul-blues in the next, which was a long cry from the onstage fury for which he was renowned. Guy continued to perform at blues clubs in the United States and at blues festivals in Europe, attracting little notice from the rock crowd that had embraced him in the late 1960s. That changed in 1989, when Guy established Legends, Chicago's now-famous blues club. The club has become a destination for visiting bluesmen and blues-influenced rockers. Guy was invited to perform alongside Eric Clapton at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1991. His spectacular performances with Clapton earned him a recording deal with the Silvertone label and the publication of Damn Right, I've Got the Blues, an acclaimed comeback album including cameos by Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Mark Knopfler. Feels Like Rain, the follow-up album, was released in 1993. Guy is still performing and recording. Phil Guy, the blues guitarist, is his brother.

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