![]() Back when the record people wouldn’t let me cut loose in the studio I always thought, ‘Well, I have to learn something more.’ Then I woke up and I’m damn near 60 and I said, ‘Well, if I ain’t learned something by now that somebody can pay attention to, it’s getting pretty late. “All that time it was flashing back in my face that I didn’t have anything to offer. He was told that when his name was mentioned during that time to a major label representative, the response was, “Isn’t he 90 years old? I thought he retired.” Though Guy became internationally known to blues fans and has been able to make a solid living playing clubs and festivals, he went through the ‘80s without a record. And these players helped a lot of us, introduc ing us back when people didn’t know who the hell we were.” The first place I saw the Rolling Stones was leaning against a wall at Chess in the ‘60s, because Chess was the record company then if that was the sound you liked. “Back in the early ‘60s, Chicago and Chess Records was the only place putting out that type of music, that guitar and harmonica stuff, so it was like a magnet. I just think that any man that’s interested in playing an instrument and loving it the way I love it-the way I’m sure those kids loved it-they’re going to be pretty good at it. Music speaks in all languages and nationalities. I think music don’t come in the length of hair or the color of skin. “If musicians tell you the truth, we’re all doing somebody’s music. Guy said it never struck him as out of place that white British kids would be emulating Chicago’s tough music. “Eric and Beck both told me they were into country and Western until they first heard me on an album (the live “Folk Festival of the Blues”) playing behind Muddy and Wolf. ![]() “The same time producers were trying to get me to stop sounding like me, it turns out Jimi and Eric and these other guys was picking little licks from me,” he said, referring to Hendrix and Clapton, who at that time was playing with Mayall. He soon found that there was a hot new generation of guitar slingers influenced by his work. “The first thing we thought was that they must be cops, because there wasn’t no white people listening to no blues then,” Guy said. The first inkling came when white kids Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield started showing up in the clubs. Guy said he was unaware that the music was gaining notice beyond Chicago’s South Side. Befriended by the elder blues master, Guy stayed in Chicago, playing and recording with Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson and other Chess Records artists, as well as performing solo and establishing a long musical partnership with harmonica player Junior Wells. ![]() ![]() Fate interceded in the form of Muddy Waters, a salami sandwich and a late night jam session. In 1958, he took a bus to Chicago but, hungry and daunted by the big city, he decided almost immediately to return home. Guy soon got a guitar himself and started playing in nearby Baton Rouge. He was born in Lettsworth, La., and had only heard blues music on the radio when one day traveling musician Lightnin’ Slim came through the farming town with an electric guitar, plugged his amp into an outlet outside the market, and commenced to playing “Boogie Chillen.” The young Guy gave his allowance to Slim so he’d play it again. Yet, despite-or perhaps because of-his inattention to form, Guy’s music comes across with a volcanic force, overwhelming listeners with his passion and love of the blues. ![]() He’ll apply the same over-distorted volume and flashy speed that British players used to excess he’ll jump styles five times in a solo he’ll mug, clown and go through some of the most grandstanding stage antics since ‘50s New Orleans bluesman Guitar Slim. Actually, the live sound with which Guy is now connecting (he’ll be at the Coach House tonight night with John Mayall) can be a blues purist’s nightmare. ![]()
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