Hambridge remembers seeing Robert Plant swoon over Guy at the Kennedy Center Honors. Let's not, in haste, lose it.’”Īnd it isn’t just Hambridge who’s in awe of his soulful delivery and technical proficiency. He could sing something and say to me, ‘Oh geez, I think I'm slipping there.’ I'm like, ‘Oh wait a minute, before we lose that, what the hell did you just do? You just made up a color. “I sometimes slow down because I want to hear where he's going. “It’s not an exact science with Buddy,” Hambridge says. Hambridge, who first met Guy while opening for him on tour, describes him as casual, funny, and shy, but more importantly, “masterful,” with an unbeatable work ethic. And I go, ‘Okay, s**t, this is going to get deep.’” And the emotion you get, I know immediately that he's connected with it. He might not say to me, ‘I know what you're talking about.’ He might not say, ‘We're talking about when I'm gone.’ He'll just get in front of the microphone, close his eyes, and start singing it.
I bring these songs to him and I don't know how he's going to react.
“But he always knows what he's feeling and what he wants. “He's a man of few words at times,” Hambridge says. It’s that level of trust that makes him confident to bring Guy songs like, “Blue No More,” a tale of a bluesman on Judgement Day. I would never put anything on a Buddy Guy record that doesn't completely connect to him. “I love him to death, he has been so kind to me over the years and believed in me. “It’s more of an emotional connection,” Hambridge says. Hambridge, who’s written over 500 songs for artists like Johnny Winter, Rascal Flatts, and George Thorogood, says writing for Buddy Guy is entirely unique. Writing songs from someone else’s perspective is no easy task, especially when tackling such difficult subjects. “He puts his blood and sweat in this stuff. “It's an important piece of music that's coming out,” Hambridge says. While Hambridge wrote most of the lyrics on the album, he did so through Guy’s perspective, drawing from his stories and life experiences in the process. He wasn’t a surprising choice for the gig, having created two Grammy-winning records with Guy since they first met. And that’s what producer Tom Hambridge, 57, made sure of this time around. Save the sentimentality, this record rips the way only a Buddy Guy record could. While Guy vehemently laments both the modern state the record industry and the lack of any blues’ mainstream notoriety on radio, he’s far from out-of-touch with the genre that defined rock’n’roll. I gotta take it to bed with me and wake up with it again.”īut don’t let the record’s lyrics or his openness mislead you. If you write a song for me tomorrow and I like it, I’d look at it twice and say, ‘Yeah man, I got it, I don’t need to read it no more.’ Now, s**t, you gotta give me three months. “The late Tyrone Davis, him and I was talking before he got ill and passed away,” Guy says. He chuckles, but speaks with the practicality of a realist.
Guy discusses entering his later years with dignity and humor. was 89 years old when he passed away, and I think your brains go to forgetting.” King passed away man, the last two years of his life, people was complaining about him playing the same song four or five times a night and everybody was afraid to tell him, ‘You done sung that song already!’ You know? He was the type, you didn’t tell him what to do, not easily. But people look at you as you get like that and say, ‘I don’t care, I just want to see you play the guitar.’” “If I keep living and can’t produce enough to make somebody happy, then I’ll begin to feel that I’m not giving you your money’s worth. “You owe people the best that you got,” Guy says. In 2012, he told PBS that blues musicians “don’t retire, they drop.” He still, albeit cautiously, maintains the sentiment today. Guy hopes to preserve his grace on stage, too. “When I go into the studio, I just hope and pray that I can hit a note or sing something that somebody would like.” “I was brought up very religious,” Guy says. The Blues is Alive and Well opens on the song “A Few Good Years,” a negotiation with a higher power to be allowed a bit more time with his friends, family, and guitar.
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