Buddy Guy.
The five-time Grammy winner received Billboard’s prestigious Century Award in 1993, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, and by his reckoning has won every W.C. Handy award he could.
But the 71-year-old musician, who plays Friday night at NIACC, gives the credit to those who went before him — musicians such as Fred McDowell, Son House, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Lightnin’ Slim.
“The people who I learned everything from should have got ’em before I did,” Guy said in a recent interview, adding that he always accepts his awards in their honor.
“I don’t know if you’d be talking to me if it wasn’t for them, and I don’t think they got anything.”
“They just played for their good-looking woman and a drink of wine.”
Born in 1936 on a plantation in Lettsworth, La., Guy said he didn’t know what a guitar was, but fashioned his early instruments out of rubber bands, screen wire and lighter fluid cans.
“I could hear it. I couldn’t finger it, but I could hear it.”
In 1957, he headed north to Chicago, where he quickly joined the blues scene.
His youngest brother, Phil, also a musician, eventually joined him in Chicago.
“He’s the only one here. The rest of my family are still in Baton Rouge, La. There’s five of us (kids).”
Guy said even his grandparents weren’t aware of anyone in the family who was musically inclined.
“I think the Creator put us all here for a reason. I don’t think that comes from just a family thing. I think it’s just some God-gifted talent.”
These days, Guy said he listens to a lot of spirituals.
“I learn a lot from that because that’s the music the B.B. Kings, the Muddys and all us were listing to before the blues became popular. You had five or six guys and their voices was the instruments.”
Guy continues touring, especially in the summer, and plays all January at his club in Chicago, Buddy Guy’s Legends.
“To be honest, B.B. King and myself are the last ones from that era that still are healthy enough to be going, and I’m trying to take the blues as far as I can.”
Guy talked about the 81-year-old King, who played this summer at the Surf Ballroom.
“At his age, he’s still going. I told him, ‘When you going to slow down?’ He said, ‘Buddy, you know, we don’t slow down. We just drop.’ ”
“I’m glad I met him. He’s one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet.”
Guy said he met all of the blues greats before they died — Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy, Little Walter.
“You know I played years with Junior (Wells). With all of them.
“I’m lonely without ’em.”
Guy is concerned about the future of music, and especially the blues.
“The only hope I got is I hope I can reach out and grab somebody.”
He said he discovered “a little 9-year-old white kid in Massachusetts. I thought he was going to hit one, two licks. I didn’t play one lick he couldn’t find.”
Guy said the younger people who attend his concerts know him more through what someone like Eric Clapton has said about him than his music. Clapton has proclaimed Guy “by far without a doubt the best guitar player alive … He really changed the course of rock and roll blues.”
Guy said if musicians aren’t young and good-looking, they don’t have a chance on music television. If they don’t have a lot of money, they can’t get their records in a major store. The blues clubs are fading, and no one is playing blues or jazz much on the big FM stations.
“Now you turn your radio on, you hear the same three songs all day— maybe four.”
He said he wouldn’t want to hear blues all the time, however.
“I would just love to hear like it used to be — a Frank Sinatra, a Muddy Waters, a Mahalia Jackson and a Britney Spears, and I wouldn’t touch that dial.”
Guy is featured on CMT special
Buddy Guy is one of the artists featured in a two-hour concert special honoring Hank Williams Jr.
“CMT Giants — Hank Williams Jr.” will be shown at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 17, on CMTV.
Along with Guy, guest performers include Alan Jackson, Tim McGraw, Toby Keith, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Brad Paisley, Kid Rock, Gretchen Wilson, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Shooter Jennings and Holly Williams. Jimmy Kimmel and Terry Bradshaw are slated to present.
Fast Facts
Who: Buddy Guy
When: Friday, Nov. 16. Showtime, 7:30 p.m.
Where: North Iowa Community Auditorium, NIACC Campus, Mason City
Tickets: $40 for rows A-J and $30 for rows K-Z. For tickets, call the NIACC Box Office at 1-888-466-4222, ext. 4188.
For more information: www.buddyguy.net, www.niacc.edu/calevents/2007-08/buddyguy.html
Sponsors: North Iowa Area Community College and the Globe Gazette will present the show, which is part of the 2007-2008 NIACC Performing Arts Series. Platinum sponsors for the 2007-2008 series include NIACC, Globe Gazette Elizabeth Muse Norris Charitable Fund; the Globe Gazette; Alliant Energy; Community National Bank; Henkel Construction; and Principal Financial Group. Gold sponsors include David and Cathy Beck; First Citizens National Bank; First State Bank of Belmond; Kraft; Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa; Martin, Cooney, MacNider & Cooney, Financial Consultants of Raymond James and Associates, Inc.; Sukup Manufacturing; and UBS Wealth Management. In kind sponsors include Hanford Inn; KIMT; and Pepsi.
