How Will Blues King Buddy Guy Celebrate His 87th Birthday? With Cake And Cognac, Of Course

On July 30, blues king Buddy Guy will celebrate his 87th birthday. Rather than lounging around, the iconic guitarist will spend the day traveling from Denver to Las Vegas to perform another show on his long-spanning and far-reaching Damn Right Farewell Tour. But a few days prior, his crew and family are squeezing in a hometown celebration to honor the music pioneer. His party will boast the essentials: cake, cognac, and live music at his club, Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago.

Following a busy year on the road in 2022, Guy has made 2023 one his most jam-packed touring schedules to date. After his annual January residency at his own venue, the Louisiana-born musician has brought his licks and riffs to every corner of America and around the world, including India, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Switzerland, and France. He’s performed literally every month—taking minimal breaks—and will keep going through until the end of the year. It proves just how hard it is for a true bluesman to say goodbye.

“I couldn’t dream of talking to you today and saying I’m living comfortably because I learned how to play guitar well enough to get paid,” Guy explains with humility. “There wasn’t no such thing as that when I was teaching myself how to play the guitar!”

As his schedule currently dictates, Guy will wrap up his massive farewell tour—and this chapter of his career—at the Nashville Symphony’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center in November.

While it won’t be the singer’s final performance—he intends to continue playing in Chicago and at festivals at a much lower frequency—it will be a triumphant return and farewell to Music City, mere months after Guy rocked the world famous Ryman Auditorium.

Despite Guy’s age and gentle demeanor, he commanded the stage at the Ryman—also known as the Mother Church of Country Music—thrusting his hips, flipping his guitar, and roasting his own audience.

A straight shooter, he made a few things clear: unlike a politician, he can only tell the truth. Since hip-hop came out, he now says “whatever the f***” he wants. And when the crowd got a bit too spicy, he didn’t mince his words, affectionately laying down the law: “I didn’t come here tonight for y’all to f*** my song up!” Fans agreed with laughter and applause.

Below, Buddy Guy chats with Forbes in a wide-ranging conversation about his introduction to Tennessee, his place in the history of blues, and his late friend Jeff Beck. He also discusses artists like his young friend Kingfish, his encounters with legends like Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Garcia, and how he feels the world could use a bit more compassion. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I was fortunate enough to have a chance to see you tear up the Ryman Auditorium here in Nashville. What do you remember about your introduction to the state of Tennessee?

Well, first of all, I knew a little bit about Memphis because BB King landed there—he and Rosco Gordon.

Louisiana is right at the border of Texas. We didn’t have television. We finally got a battery radio. If you turned on your radio at night, the AM stations were playing all kinds of music. They called the music outta Nashville and Texas, “Country and Western.” I would listen as long as there was guitar playing!

The old cowboys used to be on the horses with their acoustic guitars singing the Country and Western songs. I didn’t ever think I’d ever be invited to places like Nashville or Texas! I said, “I can’t believe I’m going to Nashville or Texas to play!” It took a while—I didn’t go there right away. But I was more surprised than you could imagine.

I know you’ve always said you were surprised that music took you anywhere. In the 50s, when you first went to Chicago, you said how the blues drew you there. Your life would’ve been really different if you fell in love with country music and it brought you to Texas…

When I heard of Lightnin’ Hopkins, he was out of Texas. Back then, it was what the late Lou Rawls called the Chitlin’ Circuit. Until the British started playing the blues, very few white people was aware of Lightnin’ Hopkins and Arthur Crudup and all that. And when Elvis came up, he’d been doing “Hound Dog,” which is a Big Mama Thornton song. That’s when the British started playing the blues.

And that’s when White America woke up. Matter of fact, I can give you a little story on Mick Jagger. He came here, they had a television show called Shindig! and they was trying to get the Stones to do it.

Jagger says, “I’ll do it if you let me bring Muddy Waters.” White America said, “Who in the hell is that?” And he got offended because they didn’t know who he was!

But after that, we started playing white colleges first. And that’s when I got invited to places like Texas. Even in California, we was going to the colleges before we got the chance to play blues clubs.

A few years ago you returned back to Lettsworth, Louisiana and saw them rename a road after you. I know how important that was for you because you always talk about your roots. It’s unbelievable how far you’ve come, from small town Louisiana to performing at The White House.

I went from the outhouse to the White House! [laughs] Do you know what? The governor got that together—[renaming] that road Buddy Guy Way in Lettsworth! I couldn’t believe it. They had me there when they put the signs up.

My mother used to tell me before she passed away, “Son, if you got some flowers for me, give them to me now so I can smell ’em. I ain’t gonna smell when you put ’em on the casket!” So I said, “Let me see it! Don’t give it to me when I’m gone.”

Carlos Santana once said that you hold your guitar like it’s a flame thrower, which I thought was a really cool analogy. Have you ever considered that you’ve been known to play your guitar like you’re going into battle?

[Laughs] You know, I play at my club in Chicago every January. [After one show], a lady walked up to me and said, “I just need to ask, how do you play your guitar so differently from somebody else? What you was doing last night, I’ve never seen it done before on the stage!”

And I just got that from these great guys. See, I don’t read music. I just watch people like Lightnin’ Hopkins, Guitar Slim, and BB King. When I saw Guitar Slim, he was wild and crazy! When I saw BB King, he didn’t need no special effects. His left hand could vibrate like the special effects. So I said, I wanna play like BB King, but I want to act like Guitar Slim.

When I first came to Chicago, most guitar players, blues and jazz, was sitting in chairs with music stands in front of them. I don’t read music and I said, “Oh my God, I gotta go back to school!” Come to find out they weren’t reading it, just had the stands up there! [laughs] My late friend Junior Wells had one with JW and I said, “He’s reading and playing the harmonica!” But there wasn’t no sheets on the stand!

I was following Guitar Slim. So I said, I can’t play as good as they do, but I’m gonna go up there and kick the stands and jump off the stage. And I got attention doing that.

Back in the day, you were known for how you’d bend your strings and shred in a non-traditional way. Record executives wanted you to keep your playing more “under control.” It’s amazing to me to think that anyone would ever want to tone down your guitar playing. If you think about the impact you made on rock and roll with the Rolling Stones and all these British guys who wanted to play like you— then look at how rock has evolved into genres like punk and metal—who knows if any of those things would’ve existed if people didn’t step outside of the form…

If I’m answering you right, that was Chess Records. They wasn’t ready for it. I was trying to get the distortion and feedback. When I went to England in 1965, Eric Clapton wasn’t famous. Jeff Beck wasn’t famous, none of those guys. I got to meet ’em and they were friends. They didn’t even know a Stratocaster could play blues. They slept in a van and saw me play.

They said they had been listening—I was doing sessions for Muddy Waters and Sonny Boy Williamson and even a couple of gospel [acts]. They was picking out my little licks!

When I went there, I threw the guitar up. I think Eric Clapton says when I threw it up in there, I caught it coming down—in the right key and I don’t remember that you know, and that’s when they told me.

I know you were good friends with Jeff Beck, who passed away in January. I’m sorry for your loss. What comes to mind when you think about Jeff?

He’s like BB or Slim, they come along once in a lifetime.

[When I first saw] Elmore James and Muddy Waters playing with the slide, I had a slide and I was trying to learn it, but you gotta be very careful with that. And when I saw them play, I took my slide and gave it to ’em. I said, “I ain’t gonna never be that good. I’m just gonna stick to playing with my fingers!”

When I saw Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, I said, “Man, you better start moving them fingers better cause these guys are coming!” And they were all looking at me, saying, “Man, we got these ideas from you!”

But every time we got ready to play together, man, he would come out and get out on his knees and bow to me. I said, “Man, it’s time for me to bow to you now!” But we was the best of friends. Matter of fact, when he died I got this call—all I heard was, “You need to call Jeff Beck.” I said, “Oh no, there’s something wrong.” Finally I got a connection with his people and they said he had passed that morning.

I’m sorry about that. You’ve lived a long life and gotten to know some amazing people. It’s amazing to see the impact that you’ve made on people like him and others who have come and gone, those who are still here or players who are just starting their careers. You’ve touched different generations.

Yeah, well, you know, I gotta give that back to the ones I listened to. Muddy and all of them patted me on my back. They said, “I want you to play on my session!” And that gave me that lift that I needed!

Whenever I see a young person now, like Quinn Sullivan or Kingfish, I went and heard him and I paid that outta my pocket to get them recorded. Kingfish won a Grammy last year!

I know there was a period where you did a tour playing with the Grateful Dead on a train throughout Canada. Do you have any memory of what it was like playing with them? Did you spend time with Jerry Garcia?

It was called the Festival Express. They had Janis Joplin and all those famous people right there. I was just beginning to get a little name for myself then. And I’m like, wait a minute, uh, don’t make me play, make me listen to these guys. Cause they were selling a lot of records!

When I went to California [laughs], I didn’t know what a hippy was! I didn’t know what they was into that out there, the free love and all that!

When I got to the Haight-Ashbury down there, man, that park, my god! Most of the kids back in those days were so high! Cause the first time—that’s the only time I ever drawed off a reefer in my life, man!

It might have been Garcia to say, “Man, you take this, you gonna play some s*** you never heard!” And I did. And I say, the next day I saw him, I said, you right. I didn’t hear nothing [laughs] We laughed and joked about it.

I know the blues is your thing and it’s in your heart and your soul. But when you played that guitar in the seventies and you were wailing on it, it sounded even way more just like straight up rock and roll, Jimi Hendrix style, as opposed to more traditional blues. It’s fun to watch you play when you really kind of go off the rails like that. I gather you weren’t even considering the genre-bending when you played with all that feedback.

You speak of Hendrix, I didn’t know who he was and they told me, if you don’t ever play New York, you’ll never make it. And we played the Newport Jazz Festival! I got invited to a blues club [in New York] and somebody walked in the door with a reel-to-reel tape. Somebody said, that’s Jimi Hendrix. So I said, “Well so what, who in the hell is that?

He came up, said, “Man, I canceled a show to make sure I meet you and hear you play cause I want to tape what you’re doing!” I wasn’t aware of him until that night, man. I found out how famous he was and he said he had been listening to my stuff just like the British guys did.

But like I said, the Chess [Records] people told me to turn that amplifier down. Let me make the long story short.

When the British started playing with the feedback on there—like Cream and [Eric] Clapton—Leonard Chess sent Willie Dixon to my house. He came to my house, said, “Put your suit on, Leonard Chess wants to talk to you.” When I got there, he bent over and said, “I want you to kick me in my butt!” Then he put on a record, I think it was Cream or Hendrix, he said, “This is what you’ve been trying to give us since you come here and we was too dumb to listen!”

What’s incredible about when you take stage is that it really does encompass everything powerful about live music: that above all else, music is this magical thing that even when you’re sad, or angry, or stressed, you can put on a good tune and really escape all the troubling things in the world. Is that something that you feel when you take stage, even today?

I tell people this every day. Whenever I go play, I get on the microphone and say, “Look, if you mad, I’ve been angry at some things in my life, who hasn’t?” But I’ll leave that at home when I come out there, I leave that at home and people start laughing and say thank you—cause that’s what you supposed to do!

If you get angry at home, at your wife, your sister, your brother, your friend—come out and have a drink! If you are mad at somebody sitting next to you— then we need to cut that bulls*** out!

We just need a little love and compassion, right?

[Laughs] I wish the whole world could feel like that, man! We wouldn’t have to worry about these people with guns and nuclear weapons! Everybody could just have fun. We only here for a little while, man, let’s just have fun!

Catch Buddy Guy on the Damn Right Farewell Tour through the end of 2023.

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