Documentary pays tribute to Buddy Guy’s blues legacy
“He’s like a tornado . ... When he plays, it goes from God, to Buddy Guy, to me.”
Carlos Santana, musician
Buddy Guy has a theory about the blues. “You play ’em ’cause you got ’em,” he explains in the lively new PBS “American Masters” documentary “Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase the Blues Away.” “But when you play ’em, you lose ’em.”
Guy has been playing ’em for more than 60 years now, in old dive bars and big arenas, with early mentors (Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf ) and rock superstars (the Rolling Stones, Stevie Ray Vaughan). Guy, who turns 85 on Friday, July 30, is narrating his own documentary and still wailing away on his signature Fender Stratocaster. He’s a dynamo, a national treasure, and this is a worthy celebration of his life.
Guy has a soft spot for San Francisco; he named his debut 1967 studio album “Left My Blues in San Francisco,” and he’s played there countless times over the years. But his musical home will always be Chicago, where he journeyed in 1957 after growing up in the heat and dust of Lettsworth, La.
Under the lowdown sway of John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen,” Guy wanted to go where the blues was king. But the blues wasn’t quite ready for Guy. The Chess brothers, blues impresarios of somewhat conservative tastes, told Guy to tone it down, stuff that dynamic fretwork somewhere else.
Thankfully, he didn’t listen. The signature Buddy Guy squall — Fender Strat turned up impossibly loud, bent strings (or, as was often the case, string) — caught the attention of England’s ’60s rock stars: the Stones, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and others. They heard America’s blues giants and couldn’t believe they weren’t superstars.
“These people are right under your nose,” Clapton says in the film. “And you don’t even know who they are.” When an 18yearold Clapton switched from playing a Les Paul to a Stratocaster, it was because of Guy.
Directors Devin Amar, Matt Mitchener and Charles Todd blend paintings, interviews and a treasure trove of previously unseen performance footage to create a picture of Guy as a tenacious, adaptive artist and fearless collaborator. “He’s like a tornado, or a hurricane,” says Carlos Santana. “When he plays, it goes from God, to Buddy Guy, to me.” Santana is just one of many colleagues on hand to worship at the Church of Buddy; others include John Mayer, Kingfish and Gary Clark Jr., interviewed in the middle of a field.
Guy works hard and stays focused; he would generally rather play than party. And he doesn’t let his famous friends go to his head, even when he’s jamming for Barack Obama at the White House. Here’s Guy’s initial impression of Mick Jagger: “I’d never seen a man with hair that long, and I’m
thinking, what the hell is this?” When Guy cofounded his own Chicago blues spot, the Checkerboard Club, Jagger and Keith Richards came to jam, squeezed in like everyone else, climbing over rows of patrons to get up to the stage.
It’s a telling scene, musicians enjoying the company of other musicians, professionals all. Guy is a bluesman’s bluesman. They flock to see him jam; he’s still playing ’em, and still losing ’em.