Analysis: Buddy Guy concerts in Brazil mark the end of a long era

The last living master of the blues, Guy put the guitar at the center of the genre to bring it to the world.

He is the last of his kind. A man who grew up in Louisiana, the radioactive center of racial segregation in the United States, built his first guitar with two strings strung on a piece of wood, moved to experience life in Chicago, served bread and salami for Muddy waters but, hungry, he ended up eating the sandwich himself. “Go on boy, I’m not hungry,” Waters said to the boy who would soon be playing guitar in his band. George ‘Buddy’ Guy, 86, is at the end of his journey. The latest bluesman of the generation of giants is making his last appearances around the world, and Brazil is on the roadmap.

His class was large, romantic, and wild, and it’s even hard to imagine that all of them would one day set foot on the planet at the same time. Albert King (died 1992), Albert Collins (died 1993), BB King (died 2015), Freddie King (died 1976), Magic Slim (died 2013), Johnny Winter (died 2014), Stevie Ray Vaughan (d. 1990), Koko Taylor (d. 2009), Etta James (d. 2012), T-Bone Walker (d. 1975), Muddy Waters (d. 1983), and Howling wolf (died 1976). Buddy Guy passed through these two generations and, after BB King’s death, was left alone. No other bluesman with that baggage, not to mention Robert Cray, today takes a plane with his guitar to give concerts outside the United States.

Buddy Guy’s last visit to Brazil will be on June 3rd and 4th when he performs his tour Damn right goodbye Tour to the Best of Blues and Rock festival, which starts on the 2nd, outside the Ibirapuera Auditorium. Guy puts an end to the generation that professionalized and expanded the blues from Chicago, giving the genre the same planetary dimension that rock (one of its famous children) had acquired in the 60s. Guy takes the boost given to the blues in the 70s by the British , who appreciate the genre much more than Americans. Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and the Who record them and give them new life. Only Led Zeppelin, thinking that no one would notice, decide to steal them, but that’s another story.

But, within such a broad spectrum of so-called third generation blues guitarists – the first was rural blues in the late 19th century, from Charley Patton and Robert Johnson, and the second, the mediator from the rural to the urban scene, by T-Bone Walker, Elmore James and Muddy Waters, – what is the importance of Mr Buddy Guy? What makes you unique? What, besides his overwhelming charisma, led him to be honored at the Kennedy Center by Barack Obama in 2012 and to be considered by Eric Clapton “the greatest living guitarist?” After all, what if Buddy Guy could only play a single scale of measly five notes?

Guy is one of the definitive agents of the construction of “guitar centrism” in the blues. Just as no one noticed that João Gilberto had been introducing ‘centrist guitarism’ into Brazilian music since 1959 – before him, the piano and nightclub orchestras were the instrumental center of everything played or recorded in the country – no one noticed when blacks decided to give back to whites the exploitation of their culture, paying in kind. If Led Zeppelin, the Yardbirds, Elvis, the Beatles and the Stones have become millionaires using the frame and, in many cases, the bodywork of the blues, the blacks have taken the soul of white rock and roll, the guitar, to reposition themselves on the planet. Before that, the blues was the breath of New Orleans, guitars in juke joints, harmonica and voices, many voices.

But Buddy Guy went one step further and repositioned the guitar itself. Unlike the English scholars, brilliant but linear in their attacks, Guy developed a fingering of unpredictable fluency, alternating sweetness and fury, sometimes, in equal measure. His dirty agility had just finished as an emotional explosion and, shortly after, his clear timbre fell as serene as a tear. Confident, Guy started playing on the guitar, making her cry, smile, play with one hand or breaking the tonal limits of a ‘bend’. Jimi Hendrix said it was one of his influences, but Guy didn’t dare call him his son: he asked him why he didn’t play anymore Voodoo child, of Hendrix, said, from the hallowed place of an 80-year-old man, that only Stevie Ray Vaughan could do it. Now they were both dead.

Listening to Buddy Guy means connecting to a time that exists only in him. Without the power to put the audience in their hands with a smile, today’s “centrist guitars” are very different. Christone Kingfish Ingram is a guy who represents them. He’s 24, from Mississippi, and has attracted ever-growing masses of people who still believe in the blues. Kingfish, although physically compared to BB King, is serious, focused and can play hundreds of notes per minute. It doesn’t matter what your guitar says, as long as it says a lot of words. A single note from Buddy Guy can engulf him.

SERVICE

The best of blues and rock 10 years

bestofbluesandrock

2, 3 and 4 June 2023

External audience of the Ibirapuera Auditorium: Av. Pedro Alvares Cabral – Ibirapuera

Tickets: from BRL 450 (half price)

Source: Terra

Earl

Earl Johnson is a music writer at Gossipify, known for his in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the industry. A graduate of USC with a degree in Music, he brings years of experience and passion to his writing. He covers the latest releases and trends, always on the lookout for the next big thing in music.