Damn' Right!!! Buddy Guy is the Blues

Back in High School I got myself in a bit of trouble.  Nothing major or in trouble with the law, but trouble with my music.  I joined Columbia House.   I'm sure you remember the deal they had twelve for a penny.  If you got the twelve once in a while they would offer buy one at regular price and get three or four for free, just pay the over priced shipping.  All good to a naive High School kid who's pockets had holes in them from buying music all the time.  I was guilty of buying a ton of tapes.  I bought the tapes because I could play them in the car and I had a stack of like ten in the center console and would rotate what I would listen to and from school and or work.

I had a small collection of Blues cassettes.  Not many like a dozen.  It was basically the essentials and some homemade cassettes.  After picking up The Complete Recording of Robert Johnson the year before I would find other classic Blues albums.  I picked up B.B. King's Live at the Regal, Best of Muddy Waters, John Mayall and the Blues Breakers Featuring Eric Clapton, Paul Butterfield East-West, and a few others.  I needed to find a few modern Blues albums.  I had some Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robert Cray, John Lee Hooker, and album called Showdown with Robert Cray, Albert Collins, and Johnny Copeland. I needed to hear more.

Columbia House had a sections in their catalog and in those sections they would have a spotlight on one artists and put the albums they had up there and sometimes at a discount.  One issue had Buddy Guy.  They had a compilation of his work and some early albums, but I wanted something modern.  With the tagline instant classic attached to Damn' Right I Have the Blues  I decided to venture out on a whim and buy the album they praised.  After a few weeks Buddy Guy's cassette came in the mail.  I quickly opened up the cassette and threw it on the stereo in my room.

After a few listens I could totally get what Buddy Guy was talking about.  The music was classic modern day Blues.  It was catchy and relevant to what he was thinking.  If he had a nine year absence from recording and possibly playing it did not show.  Not only did his music sound crisp, but his playing was amazing.  He got a bit of help on this record with some great guest musicians. These included Eric Clapton, Richie Hayward (Little Feat), Jeff Beck, Mark Knopfler and some great session musicians.  Each song was better then the last and his remake of "Mustang Sally" was more killer then the original by Wilson Pickett.

After a few listens I had to go find more of his music or start getting new music when it came out.  It was two years later when he covered John Hiatt's "Feels Like Rain" and once again he was on top of his game.  It's like he never left the music world and his legacy was surely cemented. After Buddy's comeback with Damn' Right I Have The Blues he kept making album every two years or so.  This was good, because it kept me busy listening to not only his music, but I would go venture out and get more Blues albums and CD's.  With every release other musicians were begging to play with him.  His album Feels Like Rain had Bonnie Raitt, Paul Rodgers, and John Mayall.   Around that time he reunited with his harmonica pal Junior Wells.  A year after that he guest engineer and producer Eddie Kramer (Hendrix) on board to give him all that energy to tape.

In 2012 I saw Buddy Guy with Johnny Lang on tour.  I really wish I had saw him in the 60's and early 70's. But with this new found appreciation he is stronger then ever.  I'm glad I took a chance with Damn' Right I Have The Blues because not only did it help expand my Blues collection, but also made me find a truly awesome guitar player and Blues giant. I'm saw his influence on a lot of people that play guitar wether be modern day, Johnny Lang and Kenny Wayne Shepherd or people like Jeff Beck or Eric Clapton. Buddy's guitar playing will always be something that keeps me smiling and his music will always be that I will play when I'm sad.  He truly is an original and that polka-dot Fender will keep playing forever.  Enjoy!!