When the best comes around

>> Buddy Guy takes good care of the blues

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Born over 60 years ago in Lettsworth, Louisiana, Buddy Guy started off as a sharecropper working behind a mule and a plow. Once he was old enough, he took off for Chicago to make money as a sideman for legends like Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor and Muddy Waters.

"In those days they would call me if they wanted a guy to play guitar and stay out of their way," recalls Guy. "Soon, though, they saw that I put everything I had into my guitar, which I still do today, so I started getting more gigs. When Muddy Waters wanted me to play for the 'Killing Floor' sessions, they had been working on it all night and couldn't get it right. I got the call early in the morning and went down and did it in two takes."

Rubbing shoulders with these greats helped earn Guy the coveted title of "greatest living blues guitarist." Guy, though, is more comfortable with his self-appointed title of "caretaker of the blues."

"I think Robert Johnson and Sonny Boy Williamson deserve all of the credit for whatever attention I get. They played their hearts out and all they ever got was maybe a drink. I just kept my ears and eyes open and tried to learn as much as I could."

Guy's favourite memories are of hitting the road in the '50s and '60s, long before his genius fretwork was widely recognized. Seven nights a week, three sets a night, he cut his teeth in juke joints and small smoky blues clubs. In 1989, sensing that blues clubs were drying up, Guy bought his own. Aptly called Legends, it's an attempt to offer a place for up-and-coming blues stars. "I just want to give something back because at least when I started there was always a place to play and that's not true nowadays. It's also a place that my friends can hang out in."

One of those friends is Eric Clapton, who gave Guy's career a jump-start after a very slow '80s. "When Muddy Waters was recording in his last days, it was people like Johnny Winter who got record people to listen to him. The same thing kind of happened to me. When Eric asked me to play on his Royal Albert concerts, that's when people started to listen to me again. After that, I got a call from Silvertone Records that said they wanted to give me the opportunity to just be me. I said, 'Finally!' Because I've been trying to be Buddy Guy my whole life."

Guy is now passing his wisdom on to his daughter Roshanna, who fronts her own hip hop band, Infamous Syndicate. Guy lent his guitar playing to the band, but his main career booster for his daughter was passing on the same advice his parents gave to him when he left Louisiana for the bright lights of Chicago many years before. "I told her the advice that has stayed with me my whole life and that is not to worry about being the best in town, just be the best until the best comes around."

With Jimmie Vaughan and Steve Hill at Metropolis, Thursday, June 30 and Friday, July 1, 9pm, $35.50