(Continued from Chicago Blues: Slippin’ Out)
(Source: explorelouisiana.com; Courtesy of BuddyGuy.net)
| Featured Photo: “Buddy Guy Honored in His Hometown” Lettsworth, Louisiana—2018 |
Epilogue 1: Apples and Oranges
I can’t leave this series of posts without attempting to address an inadvertent perception I may have created, one resulting from my comparison of Melvin Taylor’s performance and that of Buddy Guy. I’d like to set the record straight: Buddy Guy is a Blues legend. Full stop.
Just to recap: when we saw the two of them perform at Buddy Guy’s Legends club in January 2025, Buddy was 88 years old and he’d been playing the Blues for 70 years. Melvin Taylor was 65 and had been playing the Blues for about 40 years. Now, I would be lying if I claimed Buddy’s guitar mastery that night was what it had been in his prime. Yes, he played slower and with less control than Melvin Taylor. Still, that was nothing an age difference of 23 years couldn’t explain away. Beyond that, Buddy’s showmanship and engagement with the audience were at least on par with Melvin’s. So let me explain further.
It is true, the young guy we spoke with—before the main show began…before we’d met the Lady in Red…before Melvin Taylor took the stage on that night of Blues in Chicago—that guy had been right: Melvin Taylor was remarkable and well worth seeing on his own. Would I recommend others see him play live? Absolutely! Would I see him again myself? Perhaps. His show was indeed astonishing…but I still feel my ears ringing slightly from the thunderous sound! And to be clear, I’m not demeaning any aspect of Melvin Taylor’s talent, musicianship, and showmanship in writing this epilogue. It’s just that he hasn’t yet created a legacy for the future.
On the other hand, Buddy Guy’s life, career, and indisputable legacy are truly the stuff of legends. Heck, he even named his club to make the point! And it cannot be forgotten that Buddy was an innovator on guitar and a pioneer of the Chicago Blues sound. He is venerated by statesmen, as portrayed in today’s Featured Photo: in 2018, on a day they designated as “Buddy Guy Day”, officials in Louisiana and Mississippi unveiled a Blues Trail marker in his hometown and named a stretch of Highway 418 through Lettsworth as “Buddy Guy Way” in his honor.
Earlier, in 2012, he performed in the “Red, White and Blues” event hosted by the President and First Lady at the White House. Leading an ensemble that included the likes of B.B. King, Mick Jagger, and a dozen other musicians, Buddy famously coaxed President Obama to sing a few bars of “Sweet Home Chicago” in the concert’s finale. (Click below 👇 to watch the President sing the Blues.)
And Buddy Guy is admired by his fellow musicians—many of whom are legends themselves. He has collected countless awards and accolades: nine Grammy awards—the most recent in 2026 for the Best Traditional Blues Album—along with a Lifetime Achievement Award; a total of 23 W.C. Handy Awards; Billboard magazine’s Century Award; and the National Medal of Arts. When he was presented with the Kennedy Center Award in 2012, the Center’s chairman remarked, “Buddy Guy is a titan of the Blues and has been a tremendous influence on virtually everyone who has picked up an electric guitar in the last half century”.
He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005—Rock & Roll, mind you—when he was 68 years old. On their website listing all the HOF inductees, Buddy’s story begins with this sentence: “If you cut Buddy Guy open he would bleed blue.” Buddy’s acceptance speech that night was concise—lasting just two-and-a-half minutes—and he concluded with these words: “If you don’t think you’ve got the Blues, just keep livin’.” He followed that with, “Ladies and Gentlemen. I’ma play a little Blues for you. Alright? Thank you.” (You can click the image below 👇 for a video of Buddy’s performance at his HOF induction.)
During the HOF presentation, Eric Clapton recalled seeing Buddy perform in London in 1965, impressing him with his technique and charismatic showmanship. He remembered seeing Buddy pick the guitar with his teeth and play it over his head—two tricks that later influenced Jimi Hendrix. Clapton continued: “No matter how great the song, or performance, my ear would always find him out. He stood out in the mix, simply by virtue of the originality and vitality of his playing.” Twenty years earlier, in 1986, Clapton had emphatically declared that “[Buddy Guy is] without a doubt the best guitar player alive.”
Jeff Beck recalled the night he and Stevie Ray Vaughan performed with Buddy at his Legends club in Chicago: “That was just the most incredible stuff I ever heard in my life. The three of us all jammed and it was so thrilling. That is as close as you can come to the heart of the Blues.”
Former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman said: “Guitar Legends do not come any better than Buddy Guy. He is feted by his peers and loved by his fans for his ability to make the guitar both talk and cry the Blues. Such is Buddy’s mastery of the guitar that there is virtually no guitarist that he cannot imitate.”
Hopefully by now you’re fully informed and totally convinced of the pivotal role he has played, his unparalleled talent, and the incomparable impact Buddy Guy has made on guitar playing, on other musicians, on the Blues, and on music itself. But you don’t have to take just my word for it, or that of politicians and prominent musicians. Even filmmakers have recognized that Buddy Guy is a legend.
(To be continued…)