\n\t\tT HIS REGULAR SPOT \u2014 the stool with \u201cBG\u201d on the back, way at one end of the bar \u2014 the owner of Buddy Guy<\/a>\u2019s Legends scans the hundreds of people packing his club. Tugging off the pandemic-era mask he still wears during public gatherings, he leans forward and looks toward the stage a few hundred feet away. \u201cIn an hour,\u201d he says, \u201cI might have a drink and go up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tOn some level, this midsummer evening is just another night at the Chicago blues club and restaurant Buddy Guy opened more than 35 years ago. The tables atop the yellow-and-blue checkerboard floor are once more filling up with tourists, tattooed dudes, youngish couples, and blues fans of all stripes. The walls remain lined with photos of Guy onstage and offstage with his disciples (Eric Clapton<\/a>, Stevie Ray Vaughan) and his heroes (B.B. King<\/a>, Muddy Waters<\/a>). The employees at the merch counter near the entrance are prepping to sell T-shirts, baseball caps, and other souvenirs sporting Guy\u2019s likeness or the club\u2019s logo.<\/p>\n \n\tWhen he\u2019s not on the road, Guy stops into his club regularly, partly to keep an eye on operations, but also to goose the business, since customers sometimes show up hoping he\u2019ll take the stage whether he\u2019s on the bill or not. But tonight isn\u2019t just another booking; as a banner over the bar proclaims, it\u2019s his birthday, his 89th at that. Looking at Guy, you\u2019d barely know it: His complexion is smooth, and he appears trim and wiry in his polka-dot jacket over a white T-shirt, topped by one of his trademark white caps. Fans approach to wish him happy birthday and give him a casual fist bump. Guy acknowledges each quickly, then signals to a bartender, who brings over a bottle of his favorite cognac.<\/p>\n \n\tSome of tonight\u2019s crowd have likely been fans of Guy\u2019s for decades; others might know him as the older incarnation of Sammie Moore in the closing scenes of Sinners<\/a>, director Ryan Coogler\u2019s acclaimed and top-grossing blues-and-vampires hit. \u201cIt seems like every time I go to the grocery store, I hear, \u2018That looks like that guy in Sinners,\u2019\u201d Guy says with a smile. Easing his way off his stool, Guy makes his way to the merch area to begin signing copies of his just-released album, Ain\u2019t Done With the Blues, and pose for selfies with the Guyheads lined up out the door.<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n \n\tBut after an hour, his work for the night has just begun. Called over to the stage, he accepts a birthday cake with candles from some of the eight adult children and several grandchildren gathered around him. As the house band slips into a bluesy vamp, the family members leave the stage, but Guy remains, and the reserved, elderly gentleman at the bar transforms into the wily, suggestive Buddy Guy of legend. \u201cIf you don\u2019t love me, maybe your sister will!\u201d he growls, to laughter and cheers. After a half hour, he heads back to the merch stand and resumes the autographing and selfies, but the crowd wants more music. When a microphone is passed to his side of the club, Guy picks up where he left off onstage, wandering into the crowd this time, and exhorting more blues. He won\u2019t leave until 2 a.m.<\/p>\n \n\tThe sight of Guy summoning up the energy of someone decades younger is startling, even to his family. \u201cWe\u2019re always like, \u2018Oh, my God \u2014 he\u2019s old and is going to fall,\u2019\u201d says his daughter Shawnna Guy, a hip-hop artist since the Nineties. \u201cYou look at him onstage, and he\u2019s just bopping back and forth and hitting the strings with a face towel, then putting the guitar behind his head and playing it with a drumstick<\/a>. And you\u2019re like, \u2018What the hell am I worried about?\u2019 I can\u2019t even do that!\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tGuy\u2019s ongoing livelihood \u2014 Ain\u2019t Done With the Blues is his 20th studio album, and he\u2019s leaving for a string of West Coast shows a few weeks after we meet \u2014 is not necessarily the outcome he or anyone saw for himself. For the first few decades of his career, he was often overlooked and undervalued by the music business. But now, the blues pioneers who inspired him \u2014 King, Waters, Howlin\u2019 Wolf, Guitar Slim, and so many more \u2014 are long gone, as are many who learned from him, from Jeff Beck to Vaughan. Guy, the blues stalwart who couldn\u2019t catch a break for a long time, has outlasted them all.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI\u2019m the last old man still walking and playing the blues,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s what we talked about with Muddy [Waters] and Howlin\u2019 Wolf before they died. They said, \u2018Buddy, please keep the blues alive.\u2019 And I\u2019m tryin\u2019.\u201d As youngblood blues guitarist Christone \u201cKingfish\u201d Ingram<\/a> puts it, \u201cAs far as mainstream blues, he\u2019s the last OG.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tGuy in the 1960s<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMichael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \n\tOne key to Guy\u2019s survival is that he was never a blues purist. Dating back to his earliest 45s and his first album, 1967\u2019s Left My Blues in San Francisco, he blended soul, rock power chords, and high-stepping R&B into blues, along with an unrestrained style of guitar playing and vocal blues wail that always threatened to go off the rails but never did. His recent string of albums are packed with cameos from across the musical spectrum (Mick Jagger, Keith Urban, and Kid Rock, among many) and sport a loud, crackling, radio-friendly sound; Ain\u2019t Done With the Blues, which was just nominated for a Best Traditional Blues Album Grammy, pairs him with Ingram, Joe Walsh, and Peter Frampton. As Bruce Iglauer of the blues label Alligator says, \u201cBuddy effectively rocked out the blues, while keeping the soul of the blues in the music. I don\u2019t know that anybody else has done that. Maybe he feels like he\u2019s the last knight in armor, and that part of his job is not repeating the tradition, but bringing the tradition into a more modern context.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThanks partly to Sinners and musicians like Ingram, the blues appear to be in healthier shape than in a while; Ingram has started an independent label to foster new talent in the field. \u201cI\u2019ve seen a lot of young artists of color coming out and playing this music, or music based on this genre,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople are craving more music that\u2019s authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut once we lose Guy, we won\u2019t just see the passing of a musician who took blues guitar to new, crazily inventive heights, influenced everyone from the Rolling Stones<\/a> and Clapton to Vaughan and Ingram, and managed to have a rare second act in the music world. We\u2019ll also be losing a vital link to the music\u2019s roots and the cultural backdrop from which the blues emerged. Simply put, we will never see the likes of Guy again. \u201cWe have to accept that these younger artists didn\u2019t grow up as sharecroppers, didn\u2019t grow up in the Civil Rights Movement,\u201d says Shawnna. \u201cSo their stories are not going to be similar.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tNo one knows all that better than Guy. He has played for or met three presidents, though not the current occupant of the White House, whom he views skeptically. (\u201cThe man is a rich man, a rich person, and he got golf clubs here and there and all that stuff,\u201d Guy says. \u201cHe ain\u2019t with no poor man,\u201d adding sarcastically, \u201cAnd he\u2019s thinking about me and you.\u201d) Guy remembers the night in 2012 when he was in the White House, part of a salute to the blues during President Obama\u2019s first term. \u201cYou know, I made a joke out of it,\u201d Guy says with a grin. \u201cI said I was picking cotton on the farm with an outhouse, all the way to the White House. Some people laughed at that, but it\u2019s true, man. I tell people, \u2018Not a lot of you know what an outhouse is.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tLong Road to Success\t<\/p>\n \n\tFor at least the past three decades, the blues have been good to Buddy Guy, evidence of which is amply on display at his compound in Orland Park, just outside of Chicago. Tucked away in a thicket of trees on five acres, the estate includes a house with five bedrooms, an indoor pool, and a private residence for his groundskeeper. In his kitchen, complete with shelves lined with his favorite spices for cooking, a stash of white birthday roses has arrived from Carlos Santana, along with a card from Coogler and his wife, Zinzi. \u201cLike you see,\u201d Guy says, seated at his skylight-drenched dining room table the morning after his birthday bash at Legends, \u201cI got a pool table out down there. I grew up on the farm. There\u2019s no such thing as a pool table on the farm, man. You had a hole where you chopped cotton. That\u2019s the only stick I had.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAs usual, Guy has been up early, since about five in the morning, meaning he\u2019s only had three hours of sleep. That schedule is another reminder of the life he had, nearly a century ago, growing up in a cabin on a plantation with no running water and wooden (not glass) windows. Born George Guy in Lettsworth, Louisiana, in 1936, Guy came of age in a sharecropping family that would give half of its proceeds to the landowners, spending his days picking cotton in brutal heat. \u201cIt got to 112 every day in June, July, and August, and all we had was a big fucking straw hat,\u201d he says, sporting another white cap and a plaid jacket this time. \u201cWhen day break, you get your ass out there and come home and get in the tub and be ready to do it again tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAt first, the Guy house had no electricity, meaning no radio nor record player. But Buddy\u2019s life began to change when the 13-year-old heard a fieldhand bang out John Lee Hooker\u2019s \u201cBoogie Chillen\u201d on a guitar, then taught young Buddy how to play it himself. Soon after, Guy was further drawn into the music after seeing Lightnin\u2019 Slim play in a juke joint. Buddy\u2019s first guitar, which his father bought for him, had only two strings.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLawrence Agyei for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n \n\tMoving to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1951, Guy worked on a factory conveyor belt and then as a maintenance man at Louisiana State University while he began playing gigs in roadhouses; another early hero, Guitar Slim, inspired him to pull wrenching notes out of his guitar. Moving to Chicago on Sept. 25, 1957 \u2014 a date he remembers so well that he\u2019ll repeat it several times over two days of conversation \u2014 he found work in clubs and recorded for a local blues label, Cobra. One fateful day, he brought a tape of songs he\u2019d cut at a Louisiana radio station to Chess Records, Chicago\u2019s leading blues label.<\/p>\n \n\tGuy began logging time as a session guitarist, capable of backing up anyone from Waters to Koko Taylor (check out his contributions on her \u201cWang Dang Doodle\u201d) and Howlin\u2019 Wolf (same with \u201cKilling Floor\u201d). \u201cThey would call my house because they couldn\u2019t get this guitar player down to play the rhythm they wanted,\u201d he says. \u201cThey say, \u2018If y\u2019all want it done right, call Buddy Guy.\u2019\u201d But he also began busting out his own moves. Taking a break during a club set one night, he put his guitar down and forgot to turn it off; a customer walking by accidentally brushed her dress against the instrument, making for a joyful noise and leading Guy to experiment<\/a> with distortion and reverb. His showmanship began ramping up, too. From the stage, he\u2019d often venture out not just into the audience, but also sometimes outside the club and into bathrooms, still playing, his guitar cord trailing behind him. \u201cWhen everything was so traditional, he came with a different sound, being wild and crazy,\u201d says Ingram. \u201cI like to credit him as being like the forefather of this bluesy, rock-y sound; Jimi [Hendrix] saw that and took it to a whole other level.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tChess began releasing Guy singles, like 1960\u2019s smoldering \u201cFirst Time I Met the Blues,\u201d but Guy\u2019s tenure with the label proved to be one of several missed opportunities in his career. Leonard and Phil Chess, who ran the company, didn\u2019t quite know what to do with the twentysomething Guy. \u201cThe dominant sound of blues guitar at the time was the more controlled sound of B.B. King or Albert King, rather than being rocked out,\u201d says Iglauer, who would later release one of Guy\u2019s finest and wildest albums, Stone Crazy. \u201cAt the time, Buddy was trying to get a little crazier than Chess would let him.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tChess pushed Guy to make jazz or novelty records (like \u201cGully Hully,\u201d which was something like Chicago surf music), but none took, and Guy has said that Leonard Chess thought his guitar sounded like \u201cnoise.\u201d Guy also has contended that the Chess brothers wanted to change his last name to \u201cKing\u201d to make it sound as if he were related to B.B. or Albert. Marshall Chess, Leonard\u2019s son and a veteran music-industry executive himself, admits that the Chess brothers didn\u2019t appreciate Guy\u2019s approach to guitar and preferred to keep him in the background. \u201cThere\u2019s a rumor that my dad didn\u2019t like Buddy\u2019s playing,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s not true. My dad was highly superstitious about the backup bands, and he didn\u2019t like adding new things when he had hits with the one before. I never knew how brilliant Buddy was. I don\u2019t think anyone at Chess did.\u201d Guy was slighted elsewhere, too, like the time he appeared on British television and was introduced as Chuck Berry. He took a job at a tow-truck company to pay the bills.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tBlues royalty: John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, and Buddy Guy<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEbet Roberts\/Redferns\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \n\tThose days were trying in other ways for Guy. Tom Hambridge, the drummer and producer who would guide Guy\u2019s later albums, once visited Guy in a dressing room and watched as Guy returned an expensive bottle of R\u00e9my Martin XO cognac that was waiting, open, for him there. After he saw Guy do the same thing on other occasions, Hambridge finally asked him what that was all about. In a reminder of the racism that could dog blues artists, Guy told him that a broken seal on a bottle indicated potential danger. As Hambridge recalls, \u201cHe said, \u2018Because I\u2019ve been poisoned before. Back in the day, they spit in it or piss in it.\u2019 He said he\u2019s gotten sick before, so the bottle has to be sealed in the box.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAs would later happen with artists from Hendrix to Lana Del Rey, it would take another country to kick-start Guy\u2019s career. Black radio stations in the States ignored him, but Guy became a hero for a crop of young, blues-loving British musicians, enraptured with his combination of thrash, distortion, and stage presence. Guy recalls once seeing \u201ca white face\u201d at one of his shows and assuming it was a cop; but, he says with a laugh, \u201cit was Eric Clapton!\u201d As Clapton would later write, \u201cHe created a huge, powerful sound, and it blew me away.\u2026 He was like a dancer with his guitar, playing with his feet, his tongue, and throwing it around the room.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tJeff Beck, Keith Richards, Jagger, and more also worshipped at the altar of Buddy. (Many years later, Jimmy Page, another Guy disciple, told Guy\u2019s son Greg that Buddy was \u201cthe guitar god.\u201d) At first, Guy didn\u2019t know what to make of the emerging counterculture that embraced him in the Sixties. \u201cI saw the Stones coming with the high heels on, almost looked like a woman,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI\u2019m saying, \u2018What is this?\u2019 I got to San Francisco, and I said, \u2018Man, look at this.\u2019 I didn\u2019t know what a hippie was. I saw men with long hair. But they were going crazy [for my music], man: \u2018What do you got in that amp?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut the bad breaks continued. As the Sixties drew to a close, Guy and his then-partner, harp player Junior Wells, became a must-see duo and were offered a chance to make an album produced by Clapton. But in the midst of his heroin addiction, Clapton bailed on the project, and the album sat in the vaults for two years before it tumbled out to an indifferent response. By the early Seventies, Guy no longer had a record deal and opted to open a club of his own, the Checkerboard Lounge, on Chicago\u2019s South Side. \u201cWithout a record, it is getting hard to find places to stay,\u201d he said at the time. He would often perform at the Checkerboard, but friends and customers, even family, were equally accustomed to seeing him sweeping up, doing inventory, or setting up for other artists\u2019 shows.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tGuy wasn\u2019t averse to hard work, even in his own club. Here he is mopping the floor at the Checkerboard Lounge.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMarc PoKempner<\/p>\n \n\tSometimes, even his kids didn\u2019t quite know what their father did for a living, only that he would go on business trips and bring back enough money for piles of Christmas presents. Greg Guy\u2019s classmates in high school would ask him if the \u201cBuddy Guy\u201d hanging out with the Stones \u2014 who hired him and Wells as an opening act on their 1970 European tour \u2014 was his father, and he wasn\u2019t sure; to him, his dad was just George. At a block party in the Eighties, Greg remembers hearing loud music blasting out of a speaker and, without knowing what it was, decided to put an end to it. \u201cI took the record off the turntable and threw it,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to hear it.\u201d It turned out to be one of his father\u2019s albums. Greg wanted to listen to Prince instead.<\/p>\n \t\tA Beautiful Second Act\t<\/p>\n \n\tIn a rec room at Guy\u2019s house, the mementos of his success are on display. Besides his many awards \u2014 including eight Grammys and a National Medal of Arts \u2014 there\u2019s a sign proclaiming part of Highway 418 in Louisiana \u201cBuddy Guy Way\u201d; a thank-you letter Jagger wrote after Guy joined the Stones<\/a> in New York in 2006 for the filming of the Shine a Light<\/a> film (\u201cIt was so much fun & I can\u2019t wait to see the film\u201d); photos of Guy jamming onstage with Clapton, John Mayer, Susan Tedeschi, and others. A sculpture of a nude woman is mounted on the wall in a nearby bathroom.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n