Buddy Guy kicked off his Damn Right Farewell tour this week with shows in Minneapolis and Iowa City. The 86-year old blues legend stops in Peoria to play the Civic Center Theater Saturday night.
Guy spoke with WCBUs Jon Norton ahead of his show in this lightly edited interview:
You’re calling this your ‘Damn Right Farewell Tour.” Why stop touring now?
Well, I’ve followed and watched B.B. King the most. I’ll be 87 years old in July. And that's when he started mis-remembering his songs and different things like that. And I began to kind of feel it myself now. So, I don't want to go out there and play for you or nobody else and don’t give you what it’s worth. If you go buy a sandwich, you want it to be all right. So, if you hear some music, you want to hear it. All right? You don't want to hear me singing the same song five times.
Does that mean ... are you going to continue your annual January residency at Legends (Buddy Guy’s nightclub in Chicago)?
My children and all these people running it would probably kill me if I don't come in on January (laughter). That's not traveling, so I'll be at home then. I gotta think about all of that. But I think I still will play some festivals, stuff like that for another year until my memories go to going like B.B. King. I'm not going to cheat you with that. I want somebody to tell me, “Buddy, you're singing the same song, four and five times a night.” And that's what B.B. King was doing. And everybody was afraid to tell him. But I want people to tell me, “Buddy, we don't have enough of that. If you get up in the late 80s and 90s. Man, I think it's time to kind of move away for some young person.
If you don't mind me asking, what does it feel like?
Ah, you know, coming up, I never hung around with people my age, I always would hang around with older men 20 or 30 years old and mean, we used to talk a lot and all they would tell me boy, wait till you get my age. And I'm like 18 and 19 and 20 and saying, I can't imagine what you're talking about. And they all gone and all of a sudden, I can't even thank him for telling me the truth back there.
One thing you do and have done for a long time now is reach back and champion some of the younger players that are out there. I know you worked with Quinn Sullivan for a while. Another name that you've worked with recently is Ally Venable. You guested on her new album on the song ‘Texas Louisiana,’ great song. Do you feel a responsibility to kind of reach back and put these younger players in the spotlight?
Well, I'm in love with the younger players because that's what Muddy Waters and B.B. King did for me. And sometimes if you got a name for yourself, the record company, the promoters and everything will take person with a name better than they were with someone they had never seen before. I don't know if I told you the British had to let white America know who Muddy Waters was right? Because we weren't making a lot of money until the British start playing the blues. And that's when we went to play in white colleges. And then we went into the big outdoor thing. That's when we all started making enough money, to say we don't have to get a day job anymore.
That really did happen. Right?
Yes!
The British players coming to America really did have a huge change in the money you made?
And they let America know who we were. They didn't come in and say there's something new. America thought it was something new, but The Stones and (Eric) Clapton and Jeff Beck said, “wait a minute. This is Muddy Waters, B.B." And they took us on tours with them they let the world know.
Well, how about we talk about your new album. “The Blues Don't Lie” came out last year and has some great guests on here. You always have great guests on your album. But the one I want to specifically talk about here is Mavis Staples. Two Chicago legends reminiscing on the song called “We Go Back.” If you can be remembered for anything, what do you think that would be?
That I didn't ever rob and steal when my guitar wasn't paying off? I went to work driving a tow truck.
Anything else?
Yeah. Let me give you this one. When I first come from Louisiana, I didn't know it got this cold in Chicago. I had a friend who would play harmonica with me in Louisiana named Raful Neal. I invited him up on one January show and I think it was below zero. And he didn't say nothing. And when I went back down there the next summer, he looked at me in Baton Rouge … he said, “boy, I've been in a deep freezer. Don't get there cold in a deep freezer in July to go below zero.” And I started laughing. I said I had never thought of that because when I came here, I came in September and that's when the cold was coming in and I looked at the birds … they got migrating as these birds got more sense than I got. They went south and I went north. So, all those things - they're gonna follow me the rest of my life. But when I got to meet Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Little Walter, Sonny Boy (Williamson) and all them … I forgot how cold it gets here.
You've been putting out new albums for gosh for the last 20 years. What keeps you doing that? What keeps you moving forward?
All the greats are no longer with us. I'm just trying to keep the blues alive; you know? And if you listen to your big FM stations now, I'm not talking about Buddy Guy, they're not playing no blues hardly. If you got satellite radio, you can go back and get a Smokey Hog or Lightnin’ Hopkins once in a while but the big FM station don't give blues a chance no more … now what happened? Before B.B. King passed we were in Memphis, and we were talking about that, as I thought the lyrics were kind of strong. But when hip hop come out, I said we got to think of something else. We didn't get as strong as hip hop with that profane stuff. And you wouldn't believe me … when I go play my show now and be trying to talk like me and you talking and somebody else would get over me and go to scream … and I say shut the F*** up, I get a standing ovation (laughter).
Buddy Guy plays the Peoria Civic Center Theater Saturday night. You can also hear the music of Buddy Guy on WCBUs eclectic music format Highway 309. It’s available 24/7 at WCBU.org.