The demon named Buddy Guy

Nov. 16, 2006

Dear Julie,

1990 in San Francisco was the first time I heard of Buddy Guy. A 25-year-old co-worker came back from a concert saying she was in love with him. She meant it.

So does he.

The hair on your neck starts dancing when Buddy Guy plays the guitar and sings. His is the devilish soulfulness that had preachers all wrought up over the music that was being made in the middle of the 20th century. The downbeat of that same music is an important part of worship service in many churches these days.

I used to have an ongoing debate with a younger music fan who doesn't think Jimi Hendrix was that great a guitarist. My argument usually went like this: Nobody played guitar like that before Hendrix. Many of the licks taken for granted in modern guitar playing, especially distortion, feedback and string-bending, were his.

Maybe true originality is an impossible feat anymore, but it turns out I was wrong. Last weekend some friends, DC and I heard Buddy Guy play at a casino in Illinois. Buddy Guy has been called the missing link between the blues and rock 'n' roll. He has been playing the guitar like Hendrix and Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan for 50 years.

When Buddy Guy played guitar behind people like Muddy Waters in the 1960s, the record company thought his playing was too noisy. Other guitar players didn't. Clapton called him the best guitar player alive. Who's going to argue with Eric Clapton on that score?

At 70, Buddy Guy is a bit bent over but still a presence. He walked onto the stage in overalls, as if he'd just gotten in from a farm in Louisiana. Taking your eyes off him was impossible. Heck, he played a polka dot Stratocaster.

Out in the audience, we leaned forward as he cooed into the microphone, his big smile lighting the room, and coaxed gentle notes from his guitar. In the same song we were thrown into the backs of our seats by a scream that seemed to emanate from below ground -- same smile, though -- and a roar Leo Fender could hardly have imagined.

A few of his showier tricks -- walking out into the audience, picking the guitar with his teeth, playing behind his back -- have been overdone by disciples. I had to remind myself that he's been doing them for 50 years. Long before the wireless age he strolled out into the audience connected to his amp by a 150-foot cord.

The life force that made a young woman swoon is still strong in Buddy Guy. All those bands that seem too old to play rock 'n' roll probably are. Not Buddy Guy. Buddy Guy plays music from his soul. Souls are ageless.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.