Buddy Guy gave the audience at Foxwoods Great Cedar Showroom a memorable show on June 20th. This warm summer evening a perfect time for a good down and out blues concert. Buddy gave that and he gave so much more. At the age of 88 he is still smiling wide and singing low down blues of the styles he grew up on and also was the influence for so many artists who followed behind him.
He has won so many awards and accolades that it would take a long paragraph to list then all. Having a career spanning 50 years, refreshing he still loves to sing the blues. He said he has played many venues and that Foxwoods staff went out of their way to make him feel welcomed. Just as much and more than many places he has played over his many decades long career.
After taking the stage and bantering with the audience Buddy did some comedic handiwork with the guitar turning it and playing the strings against his body, He then used short stacatto notes for effect and let a towel slide slowly down the neck to produce a different sound.
Guy then gave the audience a treat by doing a walkthrough the theater playing his guitar the entire way as the crowd cheered their approval. He stopped once during the walk and took a woman in a wheelchair’s hand and held her hand to the strings as she strummed with him. I am sure he totally made her night.
Buddy Guy just seems to thrive on the audience interactions. He is enjoying himself and it’s contagious you just can’t help but smile all the way through the blues. This man has seen so much and so many changes in the music industry he could fill multiple books on his experiences on the road.
He was friends with Jimmy Hendrix and he influenced artists of many generations to take up the guitar and lean into the blues. There is and always will be one Buddy Guy, one of the greatest Blues artists ever.
He has done this so long he read the audience then he told a story or remembered a time he was playing with a particular artist and he would launch into a song that reminded him of that time. It all blended in well. He would talk a while, play a song. All the while making the difficult seem easy and enjoyable for him.
His face is so expressive it tells a story in itself.
For all of the years of fantastic music and never changing from the humble man who speaks low and proves himself through his singing and guitar prowess, we thank you. There will never be another Buddy Guy and no one will ever step up and try to fill his shoes, it’s an impossibility.
If you get the chance to take in a show by the ultimate blues man Buddy Guy, jump at the chance and lock in those tickets. It’s a show well worth seeing.
For more information about Buddy Guy and his upcoming tour schedule visit Buddy Guy
Review by Donna Erichsen
Photos by George Bekris
SETLIST:
Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues
Hoochie Coochie Man / She’s Nineteen Years Old / Love Her With a Feeling
I Just Want to Make Love to You / Chicken Heads
Skin Deep
Fever (Eddie Cooley cover)
How Blue Can You Get? / King Bee / If I Don’t Love You? / Take Me to the River / Sunshine of Your Love
Drowning on Dry Land / Rock Me / Do Your Thing