Secrets of the Guitar Heroes: Buddy Guy : Rolling Stone

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Coming up in the Fifties Chicago blues scene, who did you emulate?
B.B. King and Guitar Slim — those were the two. When I saw Guitar Slim put on a show, running around with his long guitar cord, I said, "I want to act like Slim, but I want to sound like B.B." B.B. was so clean and he was so pretty. I have a guitar with two B's on it, and I tell B.B., I say, "Every guitar player in the world should put two B's on one of their guitars."

And I heard all sorts of things: We had all the AM stations, the music wasn't separated like it is now. At the Chicago blues clubs, they'd say if you can play the Top 10 records on this jukebox, you'll get a little gig makin' a dollar a night or a dollar and a half. You had to play Little Richard, Fats Domino, Guitar Slim, Muddy Waters and Lloyd Price, or whoever had a hit record out there.

So whoever was playing guitar solos on the radio, you learned it.
Not only that, you had to pick up the solo for the horn on your guitar. If you didn't have a horn in your band, you had to learn how to play the thing with the horn. B.B., when I got the chance to meet him, told me he listened more to horn than guitar.

Despite B.B.'s influence, you don't sound too much like him.
Before my dad died, he used to tell me, "Say, man, if you're gonna play like B.B., you can't make no mistakes." Very seldom do you hear him miss a note, which I do. And he was so pretty — him and Eric Clapton. In Chicago, all these guitar players, they was playin' rings around me. And the only way I could get that chance to be onstage was to be wild and crazy. And people started saying, "Listen to that little black so-and-so, he's wild!" Nowadays if I go onstage and just stand there and play like B.B. or Eric, people start asking me if I'm sick [laughs].

You're known as possibly the first guitar player to use amplifier feedback in your playing. How did that come about?
What happened, there wasn't no bandstand in the blues club. You just go in the corner and plug up. And one night during the break I forgot to turn the guitar off, and the jukebox was playing. A lady passed by my guitar, and her dress tail hit the G string, and the record that was playin' on the box was in the key of G. I found out that note would just sustain and stay there, so I'm sittin' there watchin' and I'm saying, "Ah-ha — I'm gonna take advantage of that."

You were also one of the first guitarists to use distortion. How did you create that sound?
I had a Fender Bassman amplifier, man. The volume and tone knobs stayed in one place so long they was froze — everything wide open, except no bass. I still got the amp. And it had everything that you have to buy now. People try to say you need screaming tube [pedal], you need this, you need that. You ain't need none of that in those amplifiers, man.

Your loud, flashy style didn't go over so well at first, did it?
Chess Records wouldn't even give me a 45, man. They was saying, "Ain't nobody gonna listen to that noise. You turn that up that loud, don't nobody wanna hear that." But when Leonard Chess heard Cream do "Strange Brew," he said, "You've been tryin' to do this for years, and I was too fuckin' dumb to listen."

What was it you liked about the big, distorted sound?
It was my way of sayin' I'm here and you're gonna hear me.

Your performance with the Stones in "Shine a Light" was intense. How did it feel to watch it? I haven't seen it. I've never watched myself, because I learn from watching other people. And I can't learn nothin' from watching Buddy Guy. But I'm gonna take a look at it, 'cause I got a special letter from Keith, sayin' how well I did. Those guys have been my friends since before they got famous. In 1964, I was at Chess Studios when they came in. I said, "Who is that?" because I'd never seen white people with hair that long. That's when they got introduced to me, Muddy, everybody. And they never forgot the people they were really listening to when they started.

You don't hold back onstage with anyone, whether it's the Stones or B.B. Well, B.B. had a manager not too long ago that didn't like the way I played. And I don't try to outplay B.B. King, but I got to be Buddy Guy. I don't care who I'm on the stage with. If you call me to play, I can't just say, "Well, I got to stand back now 'cause it's B.B. King." I respect B.B. and any other guitar player, but I'll be playin' just like a boxer.

You could admire the hell outta Muhammad Ali, but if you had to fight him, you'd say, "Well, if I knock him out, I could be the most famous person in the world." And then in the end you don't wanna knock him out, but you got to. I mean, it's your time now, you know?

[From Issue 1054 — June 12, 2008]