Want to learn to play the blues? Use the Buddy system. Buy every Buddy Guy record you can find and study the amazingly soulful vocals and guitar licks.

George "Buddy" Guy, born in 1936 in Louisiana, was listed at number 23 among Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. His playing has always been extraordinarily expressive. He draws on other genres to create his own distinctive style.

He's also a great showman. Guy was picking the guitar with his teeth and playing it over his head long before Jimi Hendrix managed the feat.

Based in Chicago, Guy recorded numerous singles on Chess in the 50s and 60s. The label released his debut album, "Left My Blues in San Francisco," in 1967.

He had a gap in his recording career, from 1982's "DJ Play My Blues" to 1991's Grammy-winning "Damn Right, I've Got The Blues." Britain's Silvertone Records had finally given him a chance to strut his stuff after American record companies had ignored him for a decade. The 90s brought a resurgence in interest in the blues great. We interviewed Guy just after the release of his 1994 "Slippin' In" album. It won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album.

In 2003, he was presented with the National Medal of Arts. With Eric Clapton paying him tribute, Guy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. In 2012, Guy was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors. He has won eight Grammys, plus a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Guy's most recent album is 2018's "The Blues Is Alive and Well," on RCA. In 2020, at 83, he continues to play at his Chicago club, Buddy Guy's Legends. He also still tours.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
"Slippin' In" is a terrific record. It took quite a while to get another label deal, until '91. Was that frustrating?

BUDDY GUY:
You know, I don't think I got that much sense. If I had that much sense, I probably would have quit playing a long time ago. I just love what I'm doing so well, sometime I don't let things like that cross my mind, when things are not going right for you. My family was brought up that way.

If you look at life, life is just that way. Everybody doesn't have a silver spoon in their mouth. And you have to learn to accept that. And I accepted the fact that I was having fun playing, whether I was making a lot of money or not. And I didn't look forward, saying, "Hopefully, one day I'll be in a decent home and have a decent car," like I have now. And I didn't dream of that. I just kept playing, man. It's like swimming in deep water. You keep swimming and maybe you'll reach the bank.

PCC:
When you finally received the Grammys, was that important to you, in terms of validation? Or was it just icing on the cake, at that point?

BUDDY GUY:
The most important thing to me about the Grammy was, people like Jimmy Reed, T-Bone Walker, people like that, didn't achieve it, so I accepted those Grammys in their honor and hoped that me winning a Grammy, that some of the young generation will say, "Well, this stuff is not as bad as I thought it was," and keep this stuff alive and just say, "Well, if Buddy won a Grammy, I'll learn how to play blues. I think I can do it."

And that's the kind of influence you have to put on people to make them do as I did. I followed Muddy, B.B. King and all those great blues-playing people out there. That's the goal I was after, more so than I was all hyped up and forget everybody. I'm like saying, "Well, my God, this music is not dying after all."

PCC:
And why do you think the music is so timeless?

BUDDY GUY:
I wish I could answer that question, because, you know, I ask myself, and I ask people around me all the time, "What did we do or what has blues done to radio and television stations for them to ignore us like they have been doing over the years?" And some of the greatest people who ever played music are blues people. And some of the rock stars and everybody you know will mention they got something from these blues musicians.

I was watching the Stones, as a matter of fact, I did a few dates with them, and just all the famous rock groups, when you ask them a question, they'll say they got something from Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and somebody like that. And that's their roots.

PCC:
Are you happy when you hear hugely popular rock artists like that mentioning the blues influence?

BUDDY GUY:
Very much so. I have to be. Until the 60s, everybody was an R&B musician, just about -- Ray Charles. B.B. King, Lloyd Price and Little Richard. And then they come out and start naming rock 'n' roll and blues. And then they start naming Chicago blues, Detroit, Memphis, and all that stuff. I don't let that get in the way of me now. I just consider myself as a musician. When I first started, that's what we was called -- musicians. We wasn't called Chicago blues or Texas and all that different stuff like that.

PCC:
There seems to be a need to analyze and categorize.

BUDDY GUY:
Right. I don't know if that comes from the media or the record companies or what, but when it do hit me, I wonder who did that.

PCC:
Artists like Clapton and Jeff Beck readily admit to being influenced by you and other artists you've mentioned. Knowing that they have achieved immense commercial success, when the original blues-oriented players don't get as much attention, is that not frustrating?

BUDDY GUY:
No, because they have helped myself and a lot more people, more so than any record or any media I've ever had. Some quotes from Eric Clapton made the media come to me and say, "Who the hell are you?" The same thing happened to Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, when The Rolling Stones got famous.

There was a television show back in the 60s called "Shindig." They were trying to get the Stones here to play. The band said, "We'll come and we'll play, but you got to bring Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters." And they were like, "Who is that?" And the Stones were offended by America not knowing who they were.

PCC:
It does seem like the U.K. and Europe have been more appreciative of traditional American music than America has.

BUDDY GUY:
Well, you know, we had to go to Europe first. Muddy Waters went to Europe. Jack Dupree. Willie Mabon. Memphis Slim. A lot of those guys moved there to stay. They accept us over there as musicians. They don't separate it as we do here, man. When you're on a show over there, you are recognized. And I found out who I was, when I first started going to Europe. I was just here on the south and west side of Chicago, playing the smoky joints. And then they invited me to Europe and I was like, "Well, I'll be damned! Who am I? I'm Buddy Guy." It makes you feel good to know they appreciate what you're doing.

PCC:
What kind of reaction did you get on the Stones dates recently?

BUDDY GUY:
It was great. I toured with the Stones, Junior Wells and myself, throughout Europe, in 1970. And they are so famous. On those recent dates, they put myself and the Red Hot Chili Peppers on in California. And there are 60,000, 100,000 people or whatever it is, watching them. They are so famous, you are kind of like overshadowed by The Stones themselves. They don't need nobody to open the show, but after the show is over, there are some people saying, "Wow, I didn't who Buddy Guy was. He was pretty good!" You get exposed to some people that never heard of you before.

PCC:
I guess there are some people who think of you as a new artist these days.

BUDDY GUY:
[Laughs] Well, I'm sure some of them do. Every week, there are charts showing how the records are doing and I noticed they've got me on the New Artists chart.

PCC:
Coming up with this new album, how did you go about choosing the material?

BUDDY GUY:
Well, I had help on it. I wrote a couple songs on there myself. And when songs come, you have the choice to say, well, I can do a pretty good job with this, or I can't. They come from all directions, when they find out you're recording. Songwriters, that's their business, to get their material out there. So tapes were flying in from everywhere, man.

Sometime I come into the club and the desk be full of them. Willie Dixon, when he was living, he'd have 10 or 12 here. And all the songwriters continue to give you songs.

But in the end, the producer, myself, we just let me try to do my best at some of them. And then I might say, "Well, I just don't feel this song. I don't think I can do a good job on it." And somebody else says, "It is a good job." And we take it or leave it.

PCC:
The blues seems to hold an appeal for anyone who's willing to listen, regardless of age or background. Why do you think that is?

BUDDY GUY:
Well, you know, that's what amazes me about the blues. I've kind of a motto I use -- I say, "If you don't like the blues, come see me, if you've never seen it before." Some people have never really got into the blues. They think if they come hear me, they're going to be bored with me singing about all the hard times and shit I've had all my life. And I've invited some people who never heard the blues to come see me and they come back the next day, crying, saying, "I didn't know it could be so joyful."

And this is the thing that worries me about how come our music is not exposed. I got more exposure now than Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter and them did, who invented it, because I do get a chance to do a few major television shows. But my record is still not being played half, compared to an Eric Clapton or a Jeff Beck record out there on the radio. Whenever you turn the radio on, you can hear Eric Clapton, whether he plays the blues or whatever. And they don't give Buddy Guy that same exposure. And if they do, my chances might be better at selling more records.

PCC:
It's too often true that the imitators get more attention than the originators.

BUDDY GUY:
Well, yeah, that stands out like a sore thumb. But I'm not going to worry about that. I'm like an old prizefighter. If you don't knock me out, by the 15th round, I've still got a chance at it. I might get a lucky punch in there one day. So I'm used to being down. There's an old blues song -- "I've been down so long, being down don't even bother me, man."

PCC:
What about all the innovations in your playing -- were you always thinking about upholding the traditions, but at the same time, moving the music forward, doing new things?

BUDDY GUY:
I think God put us all here for a reason, not for a season. And if it's gonna happen with me, it's gonna happen with me, trying to do my best with the blues. Because I'm not going to give up at it. I tell my children. They know how to listen to it. But when they get grown up enough to come and see me play, the first thing, "Wow, Dad, I didn't know you could play like that!" And I'm saying in the back of my head, "I wish they had known this when they was six, seven, eight years old." But how could they know? They didn't see me on television. They didn't have my records.

When they get 21, they can come in a club and catch me playing. And they're amazed. And they're just like America was when the Stones came over and introduced them to Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf -- "I didn't know that was hip."

PCC:
How old are the kids?

BUDDY GUY:
My youngest daughter was 17 today. And I just left the car lot [laughs]. And my youngest son was 15 yesterday. So you know I'm broke today [laughs].

PCC:
What about the club -- Buddy Guy's Legends [in Chicago] -- is that a comfortable home base?

BUDDY GUY:
It's a nice home base for me. It's nice for me to stay in good health enough to see that I try to keep something going where the young people can play and be heard, just like I was discovered in a club. Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, all of us, we had all these clubs to play in Chicago. Chess came and saw Muddy and them, when they was playing in these clubs. All of a sudden, they had records out and they were selling those records. Hopefully somebody can be discovered here.

PCC:
Having been part of Stevie Ray Vaughan's last show and seeing a lot of your peers no longer with us, do you think a lot about being a survivor?

BUDDY GUY:
Well, you know, I don't contradict God's work. We all got our day. That day is coming to all of us, whether it's sooner or later. And my mom prepared me for these days. That was one of the saddest days in my musical life, when him, Muddy Waters and all these people leave like that. But then you go to sleep and you wake up and say, "Well, that's God's work." And you don't complain.

I hate to lose someone you love that well, your loved ones that you need here to help carry on. Stevie did so much for the blues. And when I woke up and had a call that he had perished, I'm saying, "Well, man, what am I going to do now?" But then I said, "Buddy, you got to keep playing." Because wherever he is, I'm sure he would say, "Man, don't you stop playing," 'cause we were just that close.

PCC:
The music keeps going.

BUDDY GUY:
It keeps going. Oh, yeah.

PCC:
With blues music, it seems like artists become more appreciated as they get older.

BUDDY GUY:
And we get more exposure, when we die [laughs], than when we're living.

PCC:
How do you think you've grown as an artist over the years?

BUDDY GUY:
I have to give thanks to the record company, because they came and gave me my shot. They gave Buddy Guy a chance to be Buddy Guy. Until then, everybody was teaching me how to play and telling me who I was sounding like. Then all of a sudden, people like Stevie and Clapton and them was saying, "I learned these licks from Buddy Guy" and so on.

And no American record company would listen to me. Finally these people from England came and signed me up and told me, "I'm going to give you a chance to play, Buddy Guy." I said, "That's what I've been waiting for all this time." And I'm trying to be myself, which I've been trying to be all my life, because you only play what you know anyway.

PCC:
Do you feel that your best music is still ahead of you?

BUDDY GUY:
Well, you never know that until you get lucky and hopefully your fans can let you know by buying the records. I'm just glad I've slowed a lot of journalists from asking me the question, "Can a white man play the blues?" And I just hate that question because we're all human beings. If I had eight fingers on one hand, I would say I had an advantage. But a different nationality or a different color playing the blues, we're all human beings. If I learned it, you can learn it. If I learned to swim, you can learn to swim. There's no advantage. Some people come up with the bullshit about "You have to live it to play it, man."

So in other words, if you're an engineer making an automobile, you have to be born making automobiles before you make a good one. So I don't look at it that way. I look at it, this thing is a learning thing. And whatever you love, you'll be pretty good at.

PCC:
So you think you just have to love it, you don't have to be born with a gift?

BUDDY GUY:
No, I think you have love it and learn it. God gives us all a certain gift. But I think he turns you loose on your own. And if you pursue something, you have to love it, the way I love it and the way Muddy and all these people love it. Then you'll be pretty good at it. But if you don't love it and fake it, you're bullshit.

PCC:
Well, your love of the music comes across on your albums and in your live performances.

BUDDY GUY:
But if you look at it and say, you have to live this stuff to play it... If you look around, there are a lot of people who live terrible lives that you don't know nothin' about. Family problems. Job problems. Some people have tragedies to deal with. People would consider that blues. But you tell me -- who hasn't had the blues? I mean, even a rich man got a problem. His problem is holding on to what he got.

Bo Diddley made a quote during a rock awards show with Eric about 10 or 11 years ago. He said, "Donald Trump got the blues. If you don't think it, look at him with the women he's got" [laughs]. You'd think he wouldn't have to worry about nothin'. His money would solve everything. No. Everybody's got a problem in life. I think life is a problem itself.

PCC:
So success won't change you?

BUDDY GUY:
No, I haven't changed anything at all, man. I'm just more busy. A few more people know who I am. I've sold a few more records than I ever did in my life. But I'm the same person. The things I used to think about before I got fortunate to make a pretty good record, they still cross my mind. And I still can sing the same blues I was singing before I made "Damn Right, I Got The Blues."

For the latest on this artist, visit www.buddyguy.net.