Chicago Blues: Slippin’ In

(Continued from Chicago Blues: Prelude)

Featured Photo: “Buddy Guy’s Legends – Blues Club”  Chicago, Illinois—2025

Before leaving our hotel room, we searched the view from our window and thought we could just make out the evening’s destination. We squinted and pointed…

…and sure enough, there it was (circled in the cropped photo below)!

We shut the door behind us and descended to the lobby, then hustled four blocks north along Wabash Avenue in the gathering dusk, until the sign for Buddy Guy’s Legends came into view.

A distant memory surfaced: something about the club’s exterior didn’t look quite right to me. I paused for a snapshot—today’s Featured Photo—but in that short span, two other Blues fans had taken up a position just outside the door. So much for our being first in line for the show!

Despite my initial annoyance, it turned out these gentlemen would become friendly acquaintances for the evening’s concert. As we approached, they asked if we could take a picture of them standing beneath Buddy Guy’s smiling face. We did and afterwards, they returned the favor.

With the ice broken, they introduced themselves and told us how the bouncer wouldn’t let anyone inside before 5:00; we still had 20 minutes to wait. Clint, the younger and beefier man, radiated an easy geniality, appropriate to his work as a preacher. Matt, a pharmacist and Clint’s friend from church, was a bit more reserved. Like us, they had journeyed from afar to see Buddy Guy’s show, driving from Nashville over two days. Clint admitted he was mostly along for the ride; it was Matt who was the real Blues lover. The conversation flowed as we shared tales of favorite musicians and previous concerts.

I stepped away for a moment, drawn to a poster in the window advertising the month-long schedule for Buddy Guy’s live performances. (Note those black-and-white polka dots again!)

On January 16—the night of our show—Melvin Taylor was also playing, but my friend and I weren’t familiar with him. We mistakenly thought he would be playing along with Mr. Guy but soon learned that Melvin Taylor would play his own set, scheduled to start at 7:30, after the opening act, which would begin at 5:30. Buddy’s hour-long show wouldn’t start until nearly 10:00 that night.

The crowd of early birds continued to gather outside the club as the time neared 5:00. Another man standing nearby joined our conversation. I don’t recall his name, but he said he was a real estate manager who set rental prices for apartments in Chicago. Claiming to be a regular at the club, he was waiting to see if he could upgrade his tickets for a better table. We were skeptical he would succeed, since the show had long been sold-out. We were also jealous he even had a table, since our own tickets were Standing Room Only. Still, we’d arrived early to soak in all the atmosphere and music we could, aiming to get our money’s worth for the night at Legends.

As we chatted and waited, Mr. Real Estate offered a helpful hint: he said when we got inside the club, we should skip the bar near the front—where most people would stop—and walk quickly to the back bar. He said it was usually less crowded and had a better view of the stage. There were a few bar stools available, and we could grab a seat for the night if we staked our claim quickly enough. It turned out he was right about the back bar. It also turned out he really must have held some sway at the club; we saw him later with a few friends—just before the main show began—being escorted to a table right by the stage, front and center.

A few minutes after 5:00, the doors finally opened, and we lined up single file to enter the hallowed ground and wait for the usher to check our tickets. Appropriately, Matt and Clint preceded us inside. We also gallantly ceded the next spots to an elderly couple (only slightly more elderly than we)—a woman with a rolling walker, along with her companion—who had actually arrived after us.

We went in next, showed our tickets, and were quickly waved along. Declining the offer of free commemorative concert lanyards, we scooted around the elderly couple and followed Mr. Real Estate’s advice, hustling hot on the heels of our initial acquaintances. We skirted the front bar, circled past the stage, and closed in on the club’s back bar.

Matt—the Blues lover—took the first stool, closest to the stage. Clint, his companion grabbed the second. I yielded the third stool to my friend—the instigator of our own adventure—then settled myself into the fourth stool. There were a few more stools farther away from the stage, but they remained unclaimed for a while. There was no cause for complaint about our location: how fortunate we’d been for that back-bar recommendation. Just look at the view!

A waitress handed us a beer menu, and we quickly scanned the offerings. The selection wasn’t extensive: an uninspired list of bottled beers, redeemed by a decent assortment of drafts from local breweries.

We told her we’d have the special Buddy Brew Wheat Ale, which was delivered a short while later by the bartender. He asked if we wanted to run an open tab for the night. It seemed a reasonable thing to do, so I handed him my credit card and he placed it in a small file box behind the bar. My friend and I clinked our “Cheers”, then savored the slightly hazy golden nectar…

…while we marveled at the sights around us. Beyond the taps, on the wall behind the bar hung framed photos of Blues legends, a couple of them next to their signed guitars…

…including B. B. King alongside his beloved “Lucille”.

There was even a picture of the fabled Robert Johnson, who first recorded that classic tune, “Sweet Home Chicago”.

Then my friend and I chatted and sipped our beer, waiting for the musical magic to begin.

(To be continued…)