Nov. 04--Chicago bluesman Buddy Guy opened his Orland Park home to Rolling Stone magazine and discussed his journey to Chicago and his relationship with the late B.B. King in an article posted online Wednesday.
"When B.B. passed away, I kind of woke up and said, 'I'm the last one here,'" Guy said about King, who died in May. "It's a little scary."
Guy described moving from Louisiana to Chicago on Sept. 25, 1957, which he calls his "second birthday," because he wanted to be near famed blues musician Muddy Waters. He recalled being broke but getting a gig at the now-closed 708 Club in Bronzeville, where Waters watched him play and later became his "father figure."
Though he's 79, Guy said he often visits his South Loop club Buddy Guy's Legends and plays more than 150 shows a year. It was announced last week that Guy is scheduled to anchor a 2016 Jimi Hendrix tribute tour next year, which is slated to stop at the Chicago Theatre in March.
"B.B. King dedicated his life to the blues until he couldn't go no more," Guy said. "Muddy, Wolf, all of them did it. Because they loved it as much as I do. And now I'm gonna do it myself. I think I owe that to them."
Guy's regular drink: Heineken with a glass of ice. The Legends signature drink is the Buddy Brew, a Witbier. "When I go home tonight, I don't wanna be caught drunk," Guy explains about why he favored Heineken. "The Buddy Brew is a little stronger. That's why a lot of people like it, man -- you get your money's worth."
On the Rolling Stones visiting Legends in June: "Keith (Richards) hasn't slowed down nothing. He drank everything I was selling in the club -- moonshine, gin, whiskey, everything. Son of a (expletive) is made of iron, man."
On business at Legends: Guy said merchandise sales increase 90 percent when he is at the club. "Most clubs are not surviving because of DUI and non-smoking but they come see me sitting at the bar and take pictures."
On blues clubs in Chicago: "I think if I closed my club, there might be two left," Guy said. When he first arrived in Chicago, "there wasn't even space to have another club, there were so many. You could work Chicago seven nights a week. They were small, 40 to 50 people. But Muddy (Waters) was playing, Sonny Boy Williamson, all of 'em. No cover charge."
On his Orland Park home getting egged a decade ago: After cleaning it up, he said he got out his snowblower and cleaned his neighbors' sidewalks. "They said, 'A black man gets eggs thrown on his house, and he's still plowing snow off everybody's sidewalk, corner to corner?'" Guy said. "And we were the best of friends after that."
