Buddy Guy

Dirty Linen

This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #120 (October/November 2005).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

Buddy Guy

Damn Right, I Got the Blues

by Elliot Stephen Cohen

At Buddy Guy's induction into the prestigious Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, Eric Clapton proudly told the packed house at New York's famed Waldorf Astoria, "He was for me what Elvis was for most other people. Whenever I see him, I become an ecstatic, helpless teenager all over again."

Clapton, no slouch himself on the six-string, once called Guy "the world's greatest living blues guitarist." Guy, the 69-year-old, internationally revered blues icon, now says of his famous friend, "Eric is such a great guy, man, but so are most of those British guys." It was back in February 1965 that Clapton first spied Guy -- who had been wrongly introduced as Chuck Berry -- performing on Britain's popular "Ready, Steady, Go," television show. That same month, Clapton, who was then in the process of leaving the pop-oriented Yardbirds to pursue his love of the blues, trekked down to London's famous Marquee Club, where the 20-year-old rock star witnessed his first authentic American electric bluesman up close and in person.

"After him and [Jeff] Beck and me got to be friends, they tells me that they used to sleep outside the club in a van to be able to come into the club to see me play," recalled Guy of those exciting days. "I was wild and crazy then, and Rod Stewart was my valet, carryin' my guitar case. I have never sat down and talked to him about it since, 'cause I joke about it now and say I wants to borrow some money from him, 'cause we drove all the way up and down England in an old raggedy car."

[cover #120]