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At age 87, Buddy Guy is a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a major influence on rock titans like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, a pioneer of Chicagoβs fabled West Side sound, and a living link to the cityβs halcyon days of electric blues. Buddy Guy has received 8 GRAMMY Awards, a 2015 Lifetime Achievement GRAMMY Award, 38 Blues Music Awards (the most any artist has received), the Billboard Magazine Century Award for distinguished artistic achievement, a Kennedy Center Honor, and the Presidential National Medal of Arts. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him No. 23 in its "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time."
In 2019, Buddy Guy won his 8th and most recent Grammy Award for his 18th solo LP, βThe Blues Is Alive And Well.β
In July 2021, in honor of Buddy Guyβs 85th birthday, PBS American Masters released βBuddy Guy: The Blues Chase The Blues Away,β a new documentary following his rise from a childhood spent picking cotton in Louisiana to becoming one of the most influential guitar players of all time. The documentary features new interviews with Buddy Guy, Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Gary Clark Jr, and more. Watch the full documentary at PBS Online here.
Though Buddy Guy will forever be associated with Chicago, his story actually begins in Louisiana. One of five children, he was born in 1936 to a sharecropperβs family and raised on a plantation near the small town of Lettsworth, located some 140 miles northwest of New Orleans. Buddy was just seven years old when he fashioned his first makeshift βguitarβ β a two-string contraption attached to a piece of wood and secured with his motherβs hairpins.
In 1957, he took his guitar to Chicago, where he would permanently alter the direction of the instrument, first on numerous sessions for Chess Records playing alongside Howlinβ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and the rest of the labelβs legendary roster, and then on recordings of his own. His incendiary style left its mark on guitarists from Jimmy Page to John Mayer.
βHe was for me what Elvis was probably like for other people,β said Eric Clapton at Guyβs Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2005. βMy course was set, and he was my pilot.β
Seven years later, July 2012 proved to be one of Buddy Guyβs most remarkable years ever. He was awarded the 2012 Kennedy Center Honor for his lifetime contribution to American culture; earlier in the year, at a performance at the White House, he even persuaded President Obama to join him on a chorus of βSweet Home Chicago.β Also in 2012, he published his long-awaited memoir, When I Left Home.
These many years later, Buddy Guy remains a genuine American treasure and one of the final surviving connections to a historic era in the countryβs musical evolution.
You may also like the following events from Freeman Arts Pavilion:
- This Friday, 27th June, 07:00 pm, Sons of Mystro in Fenwick Island
- This Saturday, 28th June, 05:30 pm, The Summer Social in Fenwick Island
- This Sunday, 29th June, 07:00 pm, Pure Prairie League, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Orleans and Firefall in Fenwick Island
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