(Continued from Chicago Blues: A Trio of Epilogues (Pt. 1))
(Source: variety.com)
| Featured Photo: “Buddy Guy – A Tribute in the Movie Sinners” New Orleans, Louisiana—2024 |
Epilogue 2: Buddy Goes to the Movies
[SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen the movie “Sinners” and still intend to, you may want to skip this post for now and check back later for Epilogue 3.]
I want to return to my earlier Blog-in-Progress (BiP), which started this whole series of posts on Buddy Guy and the Chicago Blues. It was there I mentioned the legendary Blues musician Robert Johnson, born 115 years ago, who first recorded the classic tune “Sweet Home Chicago”.
It’s safe to say Robert Johnson is a legend, not only for his tremendous impact on the early development of the Blues, but also for the myths that emerged about his life. How did he acquire his musical skill? What caused his tragically premature death? To fill in the gaps about him, oral traditions emerged, eventually becoming larger-than-life.
Robert Johnson died when he was just 27 years old, due to “causes unknown”. One legend holds that Johnson was murdered—given a bottle of poisoned whiskey—by the jealous husband of a woman with whom he had flirted at a dance. But an even more famous and surreal story is told about his amazing musical ability, which seemed to materialize overnight. His transformation is said to have occurred at the intersection of Highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale.
As a young man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi, Johnson was said to have had a tremendous desire to become a great Blues musician. According to the legend, he was instructed to go to the crossroads at midnight, where he sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his supernatural mastery of the guitar. As if to stoke the flames of this Faustian legend, during his life Johnson recorded songs with titles like “Cross Road Blues,” “Me and the Devil Blues,” and “Hellhound on My Trail.” And when he died so young, it was believed the Devil had returned to take his due.
Fast-forward to April 2025, just three months after my friend and I went to Chicago to see Buddy Guy. That was when Ryan Coogler’s wildly popular and critically acclaimed horror movie “Sinners” was released—a story about vampires and the Blues set in Clarksdale, Mississippi. When developing the character for the aspiring Blues prodigy Sammie, it’s easy to understand that the filmmaker was inspired by the real-life figure of Robert Johnson, given his musical influence and the folklore that surrounded him. For the film, the real-life R&B prodigy Miles Caton was chosen to play the young Sammie.
When considering who should play the older version of Sammie—and as if to validate the argument in my previous post—Coogler traveled to Chicago to meet the living legend Buddy Guy at his club and to ask him to take the role. As portrayed in today’s Featured Photo, Buddy only appears at the end of the movie—actually after the credits start to roll—in a mid-credit cameo lasting just over five minutes. Still, the filmmaker considered it so pivotal to the plot that Buddy’s brief scene was actually the first shot for the movie.
When I first saw the film, I would have sworn the scene was filmed in Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago, with the characters sitting at the front bar of the club. But on closer examination (and a quick search of the internet), alas I discovered it was not. It was actually filmed in New Orleans, using a pretty close rendition of the Legends club. Indeed, “Sinners” was filmed entirely in Louisiana, primarily within a 50-mile radius of New Orleans, standing in for 1930s Mississippi.
And the cameo scene itself? It is set in 1990s Chicago. Buddy Guy—complete with the requisite scars on his face from that fateful night long ago—plays the aged Sammie, six decades after the character left his home in Clarksdale. Sammie is visited at his club by the vampires Stack and Mary, now decked out in their early ’90s finest.
Honoring a promise to his deceased brother, the vampire Stack (Michael B. Jordan) tells Sammie he won’t hurt him; he’ll let him live out his life. But then Stack comments how Sammie seems to be nearing the end of his natural life. Stack offers him the immortality of vampires, so he can “keep tourin’, keep livin’.” But Sammie declines, saying, “I think I’ve seen enough of this place.” And perhaps that’s what Buddy himself would say, if given the choice.
At Stack’s urging—for old time’s sake—Sammie picks up his 1932 guitar, restored to its original condition, and plays some old-school Blues, the kind he used to perform as a boy. When the song is over, Stack slaps two $100 bills on the counter and—still honoring his brother’s wish—leans over and gives Sammie a hug (rather than biting him so he could live forever.)
The two vampires then start to leave the club but before they reach the door, Sammie stops them, saying, “You know something? Maybe once a week, I wake up paralyzed reliving that night. But before the sun went down, I think that was the best day of my life. Was it like that for you?” Stack turns, closes his eyes and replies, “No doubt about it. Last time I seen my brother. Last time I seen the sun. And just for a few hours, we was free.” And then they’re gone, leaving an introspective Sammie sitting alone.
If you want to watch/rewatch Buddy’s cameo appearance, you can see the entire 5:32 scene by clicking here or on the image below.
For his work in the film, Buddy Guy received Variety magazine’s inaugural Living Legend / Iconic Collaboration in Film award in December 2025. He was also honored by being asked to perform with the cast of “Sinners” at the 98th Academy Awards in March 2026. The movie garnered a record-breaking 16 award nominations and won four Oscars, including Best Original Score, which highlighted the film’s Blues influence.
So, you see, it’s no coincidence he was chosen to play the elder statesman of Blues in the mid-credit epilogue to the movie “Sinners”, filmed in a recreation of his real-life Chicago club. Buddy Guy is indeed the legend.
And still, I need to return to that proposition of immortality Stack made to Sammie, so he could “keep tourin’, keep livin’.” Would Buddy Guy really turn down that offer? In a recent interview, Buddy said something that now makes me wonder. Perhaps he would actually jump at the chance to keep playing the Blues forever!
(To be continued…)