George "Buddy" Guy (born July 30, 1936) is an American blues guitarist and singer. He is an exponent of Chicago blues and has influenced guitarists including Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, Gary Clark Jr. and John Mayer. In the 1960s, Guy played with Muddy Waters as a house guitarist at Chess Records and began a musical partnership with the harmonica player Junior Wells.
Guy was ranked 23rd in Rolling Stone magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". His song "Stone Crazy" was ranked 78th in the Rolling Stone list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". Clapton once described him as "the best guitar player alive". In 1999, Guy wrote the book Damn Right I've Got the Blues, with Donald Wilcock. His autobiography, When I Left Home: My Story, was published in 2012.
Guy was born and raised in Lettsworth, Louisiana. His parents were sharecroppers and as a child, Guy would pick cotton for $2.50 per 100 pounds. He began learning to play the guitar using a two-string diddley bow he made. Later he was given a Harmony acoustic guitar which, decades later in Guy's lengthy career, was donated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In the mid-1950s Guy began performing with bands in Baton Rouge, including with Big Papa Tilley and Raful Neal. While living there, he worked as a custodian at Louisiana State University. In 1957, he recorded two demos for a local DJ in Baton Rouge for Ace Records, but they were not issued at the time.
Soon after moving to Chicago on September 25, 1957, Guy fell under the influence of Muddy Waters. In 1958, a competition with West Side guitarists Magic Sam and Otis Rush gave Guy a record contract. Soon afterwards he recorded for Cobra Records. During his Cobra sessions, he teamed up with Ike Turner who helped him make his second record, "You Sure Can't Do" / "This Is The End", by backing him on guitar and composing the latter. After two releases from Cobra's subsidiary, Artistic, Guy signed with Chess Records.
Guy's early career was impeded by conservative business choices made by his record company, Chess Records, his label from 1959 to 1968, which refused to record Guy playing in the novel style of his live shows. Leonard Chess, Chess Records founder, denounced Guy's playing as "just making noise.†In the early 1960s, Chess tried recording Guy as a solo artist with R&B ballads, jazz instrumentals, soul and novelty dance tunes, but none of these recordings was released as a single. Guy's only Chess album, I Left My Blues in San Francisco, was released in 1967. Most of the songs belong stylistically to the era's soul boom, with orchestrations by Gene Barge and Charlie Stepney. Chess used Guy mainly as a session guitarist to back Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor and others. As late as 1967, Guy worked as a tow truck driver while playing clubs at night.
During his tenure with Chess, Guy recorded sessions with Junior Wells for Delmark Records under the pseudonym Friendly Chap in 1965 and 1966. In 1965, he participated in the European tour American Folk Blues Festival.
He appeared onstage at the March 1969 "Supershow" in Staines, England, which also included Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Jack Bruce, Stephen Stills, Buddy Miles, Glenn Campbell, Roland Kirk, Jon Hiseman, and the Misunderstood. In 1972, he established The Checkerboard Lounge, with partner L.C. Thurman.
Guy's career was revived during the blues revival of the late 1980s and early 1990s. His resurgence was sparked by Clapton's request that Guy be part of the "24 Nights" all-star blues guitar lineup at London's Royal Albert Hall. Guy subsequently signed with Silvertone Records and recorded his mainstream breakthrough album Damn Right, I've Got the Blues in 1991.
Guy had a small role in the 2009 crime film In the Electric Mist as Sam "Hogman" Patin.
As of 2021, Guy still performs at least a hundred and thirty nights a year, including a month of shows each January at his Chicago blues club, Buddy Guy's Legends.
In 2015, Alan Harper, a British blues fan, published the book Waiting for Buddy Guy: Chicago Blues at the Crossroads.
Buddy Guy was among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
