Why I Suck.... Progress Report #6 - Buddy Guy!

You damn right it's Buddy Guy! One of the last of the “first gen” guitar heroes, and one of the few living links to the early Chicago blues days, Buddy – nee George - Guy was born in Lettsworth Louisiana on July 30 1936 to his sharecropper parents, Sam and Isabel. As a child he would pick cotton, earning $2.50 for every 100 pounds picked, but music and specifically guitar was in his blood from his earliest years, and he began playing on a two string diddley bow (an instrument built around glass bottle, scrap wood and strings) that he built himself. He was eventually given a Harmony acoustic guitar which set him on his way, picking out tunes and licks by ear from records.

In 1957 he moved to Chicago and earned a contract with Cobra Records, recording with Ike Turner amongst others, and after two releases he moved to the legendary Chess Records, home of blues legends Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf amongst others. He worked largely in the session player/ sideman capacity during this period, but also appearing on occasions with British blues and rock artists like Clapton and Led Zeppelin. In fact, it was only the blues revival of the late 80s and early 90s that saw his career really start to take off, with Eric Clapton requesting his presence on the “24 Nights” all start guitar show at the Royal Albert Hall. It was off the back of these performances that Guy signed with Silvertone Records and released his signature album “Damn Right I Got The Blues” in 1991. At the age of 55, he would become a true star of the blues – the moral here is never give up!

It's worth noting that just like Albert Collins, Buddy is a true showman, and has always been – playing a Stratocaster with an extra long cable behind his head and with his teeth, and being associated in his later years with his unmistakeable “polka dot” Strat which Fender turned into a signature model in 1995.

As of 2019, he still plays approximately 130 dates a year – although sadly COVID 19 will have curtailed that this year – and maintains Buddy Guy's Legends blues club in Chicago (which I had the pleasure of visiting in 2010) which hosts many up and coming blues artists.

So, enough of the man – onto the playing! Buddy's playing is probably best described as controlled chaos, a simmering wellspring of energy barely kept in check by a player bursting with ideas. As with all the players we've been looking at over this year, the minor pentatonic forms the basis of his style – but as with all of the players we've been looking at, it's not the what but the how. For one thing, his command of dynamics is masterful, being able to go from a whisper to a shout in the space of a single bar, and skilfully juxtaposing the tone of his licks against his vocals. In this respect, he rivals even B.B. King.

His mastery of string bend is unsurpassed, with an ability to bend perfectly in tune or slightly flat or sharp as the song requires. His track “Black Night” has a trick I've never heard anywhere else, where he bends up and brings the note down while applying an almost violent vibrato, creating an unearthly, ghost like sound.

Like many players, Buddy is fond of the “BB King” pentatonic box – this utilises the highest four notes from shape 2 of the minor pentatonic, in A minor giving us the G, A , C and D notes on the 8^th and 10^th frets of the B and E strings. This allows him to reach the E (5^th) by means of a bend – also to tease the b5 from the blues scale by means of a semitone bend – and resolve to the A root with the third finger for a powerful and stinging vibrato.

He is equally at home with the major pentatonic, however, as his cover of “Sweet Little Angel” proves, including this beautiful BB King- esque intro lick:

Double stop licks like this one also form an important part of his style, as he tends to play with clean-ish sound and with a single coil Stratocaster (usually in his signature polka dot finish) – double stops help fill a lot of sonic space, I like to think of them as Nature's distortion pedal. Here's an example of his use of this technique:

Finally, a typical Guy-style fast and complex run. He manages to have the knack of cramming just the right number of notes into a particular musical space, even when you think he's going to trip up and oversaturate the beat he still manages to pull it back!

Until next month, enjoy and go check out this living link to the origins of Chicago blues – Buddy Guy was thre at the beginning, he's there now, and he's finally getting the recognition he always deserved. Next month, we're visiting Austin, Texas for a look at the lesser known Vaughan brother – Jimmie Vaughan.