Heat and Humility: Blues legend and Hall of Famer Buddy Guy deflects plaudits

Spencer Patterson

Friday, June 24, 2005 | 8:27 a.m.

As anyone who has ever seen Buddy Guy perform can attest, the man approaches the blues a bit more actively than most of the genre's giants.

"When I came here to Chicago, on September the 25th, 1957, all the blues cats were sittin' in chairs playing," Guy said. "And I said, 'Man, I can't play sittin' down in that chair. I get too happy. I'll kick that chair over or fall out of it. I need to get up and walk.' And I've been doing it all my life."

Indeed, a Guy show feels a lot more like a foot-stomping Baptist church revival than a somber blues exhibition by a 68-year-old living legend.

That's the only way the Louisiana native-turned-favorite Chicago son, or his loyal followers, would have it.

"Eric (Clapton) told me he used to be so drunk he had to lay down on the floor and lay the microphone on the floor to sing," Guy said in a phone interview from his home in Chicago on Wednesday. "They wouldn't let me get away with that. If I wasn't trying to please the crowd I don't think I would play."

Fresh off his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in March, Guy brings his latest tour to the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay tonight. Doors for the 21-and-over event open at 7 p.m., with guitarist Eric Johnson slated to kick off the show around 8.

Guy, who joined U2, the O'Jays, Percy Sledge and the Pretenders in the Rock Hall's 2005 performers' class, is one of only three living bluesmen among more than 150 inductees. Bo Diddley and B.B. King are the others.

Most of the genre's other legendary figures Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and the like went into the Hall posthumously, a fact that hasn't escaped Guy's attention. "It reminds of what my mom told me before she died," the guitarist and vocalist said. "She said, 'If you've got flowers for me, give them to me now so I can smell 'em. 'Cause I'm not gonna smell 'em when you put 'em on top of that casket or when you go out there to that grave.'"

King and Clapton teamed to present Guy's induction speech, with the latter announcing, "He was to me what Elvis was for others."

"It was very special, and very emotional," Guy said. "I had to hold back the tears, because to stand between those two guys, and get inducted into the Hall of Fame ... What else could you ask?"

Actually, Guy has an answer for that last question. The only way his Hall of Fame experience could have been better would have been if some of his under-recognized blues peers had received the honor first.

"When I stepped up there and they said, 'You've been inducted into the Hall of Fame,' I wanted to come back here and cry a little bit," Guy said. "Because it should have went to the Lightning Hopkins, the Smokey Hoggs, the Jimmy Reeds ... all those great people who I learned everything I know from."

Guy's humility extends far beyond his comparative Hall of Fame credentials. Though no lesser figure than Robert Cray recently called him the "serious link between the blues and rock 'n' roll in the '60s," Guy is quick to credit his own heroes for any lasting mark he has made.

"I'm just a student of the giants of blues who deserve all the credit in the world for inventing it," Guy said. "Every award I get I accept in their honor, because if they were living I would have gone straight to them and said, 'This is not mine; this is yours.' Because I learned everything I know from those great musicians."

However bashful Guy might be about his own legacy, he recognizes the contributions he continues to make as a lasting link to some of the bluesmen who came before.

"I went to sleep and they passed on and they left a heavy load on my shoulders," he said. "To me, I'm just here to tell you what it was like being around them."

For example, Guy is one of the few guys left who can tell stories about Howlin' Wolf's uniquely gravelly voice.

"You might hear his record and think he was just false voicin', but when he was talking he sounded just like he was singing," Guy said. "His voice was natural."

As much as Guy is focused on the past, he is also keeping an eye to the future. After issuing an expanded version of his 1991 Grammy Award-winning "comeback" album, "Damn Right, I've Got the Blues," in March, he has finished up a set of new tunes for a disc slated for a possible fall or winter release.

But after more than five decades in the music business, Guy knows not to expect his songs to receive significant airplay, especially in today's blues-deprived mainstream music setting.

"I'm not asking them to play the blues as much as they do everybody else. Just play it once in a while," Guy said. "I don't know what we did to be treated like this."

Blues' lack of exposure, Guy said, hurts its chances of appealing to future generations of hopeful musicians.

"When we learned how to play guitar -- me, Muddy and all those older guys -- we played for the love of music," Guy said. "The young generation of people now are saying, 'Well, if I'm gonna play, I'm gonna get rich.'

"So they're not gonna come in here and say, 'I want to be like Buddy Guy or Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf. They're saying, 'I want to be like Ludacris or Britney Spears,' someone whose face is on television all day, every day."

Mostly, though, Guy doesn't stress about such matters. At the moment he's trying to shake a pesky sore throat (don't worry, he's never missed a gig in his life), stay in good health and extend his performing career as long as possible.

It's just another way to honor his fallen blues idols.

"I've got to follow my teachers," Guy said. "All of them played until they dropped, so I guess I'm gonna wind up doing the same thing. I don't know nothin' else to do."