by Guy, Buddy
Stevie was the one who really led the kids back to the blues. His Double Trouble started tearing it up all over the world. Was just three guys—Stevie, Tommy Shannon on bass, and Chris Layton on drums—but man, they had a big sound. Stevie talked about me and Albert Collins like I talked about Muddy and the Wolf. He respected his elders. Him and his brother came from Dallas where, as kids, they heard Freddie King. They grew up on the true blues. Jimmie was more traditional than Stevie, who was deep into Jimi Hendrix. To my ears Stevie had a way of combining Jimi and Albert King that created something new.
I say it was new—because he played with young fire and young feeling—but it was also old. Stevie was a student. He knew every last blues guitarist who came before him. But Stevie wasn’t afraid of bringing attention to himself. He reminded me of how I was when I first got to Chicago. I’d do anything to get attention—that was Stevie.
Talkin’ ’bout Albert King, he was something else. Unlike me, he had him some big hits back in the sixties like “Born under a Bad Sign.” Along with Otis Redding, Booker T., and the MGs, Albert was a star on Stax Records, where he got famous for playing that Gibson Flying V. He was also big as a bear and could be twice as mean. Albert stung them strings hard, and ain’t no doubt that he was one of the best. Fixed up a stinging style all his own. I’m just glad I didn’t have to work for him.
We was at the North Sea Jazz Festival, where I was scheduled to go on before him. I wanted to holler at Albert, just to say hello, but when I started to knock on the door to his dressing room, the security guys came running over like I was about to disturb the King of Norway.
“You can’t knock on that door,” one of the cats said. “Mr. King don’t allow it.”
“I’m an old friend,” I said.
“He give you permission?”
“I don’t need no fuckin’ permission,” I said, before yelling, “Albert! You in there?”
He came out and gave me a big hello. He was smoking his pipe. You never did see Albert King without his pipe.
“Hey, man,” I said, “they acting like I was trying to rob you.”
“I don’t even let my band members back here,” he said.
“How come?”
“I gotta let ’em know who’s boss.”
“You do that when you hand out the check, don’t you?”
“Talkin’ ’bout checks,” said Albert, “they paying us pretty goddamn good at this festival.”
“They is. My sidemen are happy.”
“You pay’em more when you get more?” asked Albert.
“Don’t you?”
“Fuck no, man. Why should I?”
“Seems only fair.”
“What you call fair? It’s fair of me to hire these motherfuckers. If they ain’t playing with me, they playing with themselves at home or driving a taxicab back in Memphis.”
Albert was great, but he was cold.
Muddy was sick. He had the cancer. I knew it and so did a lot of other people. But I also knew Muddy well enough to know that he didn’t wanna talk about it. At the same time, I had to go see him. I couldn’t stay away.
It was March 1983. I knew that his seventieth birthday was coming up in April. (He said he was gonna be sixty-eight, but we later learned that he’d cut a couple of years off his age.)
“Hey, Muddy,” I said, as I walked through the door. “Brought you rice and beans.”
“That’s good,” he said. “Go in the kitchen and heat ’em up.”
He was sitting on the couch. As I passed by I saw how thin he’d become. He looked weak and tired. The television was playing an old shoot-’em-up movie.
I heated up the food and brought it to him on a tray.
“You want a beer?” I asked him.
“Thanks, Buddy. Beer would be good.”
I went to the fridge, pulled out two beers, popped the tops, and carried them to the living room. I sat on the couch next to Muddy.
“Go ahead and eat,” I said. “It’ll do you good.”
“Man, I know. I got to eat more.”
I watched him fool with the food, but he had no appetite. He took one swig of beer and that was it. We just sat there watching the movie.
“I know you’re looking forward to April,” I said. “Opening Day. How the Sox gonna do?”
Muddy always liked to talk baseball.
“Think we’re gonna win it all this year,” he said. “Think Carlton Fisk and Rudy Law gonna be strong. Pitching is strong.”
“LaMarr Hoyt and Richard Dotson,” I said, mentioning two of the White Sox’s aces.
“And don’t forget my boy Jerry Koosman.”
“Well, we’ll go to Comiskey Park and I’ll let you buy me hot dog.”
Muddy nodded his head and gave me a little smile.
Didn’t wanna mention music ’cause I knew he wasn’t performing or recording. Figured the best thing I could do was just sit and be quiet. Sat there for a long spell.
Muddy was the kinda guy who could read my mind. After a long time he turned to me and said, “Look, Buddy, I’m okay. And I only got one thing to say to you.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Motherfucker,” he answered, “don’t let these blues die.”
A month later, on April 30, the Mud was gone. He made seventy, and he made Opening Day, but he didn’t get to see his Sox win their division that year.
The funeral was held ’round the corner from the Checkerboard. We was all torn up until we couldn’t talk. All we could do was play. All the cats were there—James Cotton, Hubert Sumlin, Sunnyland Slim. That night they came to the Checkerboard, and we cried through our guitars, harps, and pianos. We cried when we sang and we sang until we couldn’t sing no more. We sang every Muddy song that Muddy ever taught us. We remembered the man whose spirit gave new blues to an old city. He was the one who warmed up ice-cold Chicago with the sun of the Delta. Man, he was the son of the Delta—the source, the father to a thousand musicians, to cats who knew him and cats who weren’t even born. He’s still giving birth to the children of the blues.
I just love saying his name. I just love telling everyone that Muddy Waters was my friend, that Muddy Waters was the man.
They renamed the street next to his house on the South Side Muddy Waters Drive. But then, years later, there was talking of selling or destroying that same home at 4339 South Lake Park. Thank God I had me enough money so I could buy and preserve it. Now no one’s ever gonna tear it down, just like no one’s ever gonna forget Muddy.
Alpine Valley
I didn’t have no real record deal in the eighties, but thanks to the younger cats like Robert Cray and the Vaughan Brothers, and thanks to Clifford Antone turning Austin into a capital of the blues, I got more gigs. Asia and Europe were calling on a regular basis. The venues were bigger, and the fans demanded repeat performances. It was great, but I can’t say it was all good.
One time I was paid good money to open for AC/DC. Their fans, though, weren’t my fans. When I got out there, I was smacked with a chorus of loud boos. I felt bad—not for myself but for the people who’d paid to hear heavy metal hard rock, not electric blues. I wanted to tell them that I understood their disappointment, but I kept quiet and played my set, acting like the boos were really cheers.
In 1985, no matter how much I loved my club, the Checkerboard was a drain. It drank up money like a drunk drinking up whiskey. The area was crumbling, and I was tired of using my road money to pay for the losses. Even with all those headaches, I would have stayed except for the landlord pulling some underhanded moves to get rid of me. Because I was the one who kept the blues in the hood, the landlord’s attitude got me mad. But rather than fight, I up and left. I promised myself that as soon as I could find a good property, I’d invest in another club.
That happened in 1989, when I was finally making good money gigging over the world. One of the reasons the Checkerboard never turned a profit was ’cause people from the outside got tired of their cars getting sto
len when they came to the South Side. I started looking around an up-and-coming neighborhood they was calling the South Loop, just beyond the big stores on Michigan and State but close to the lake. I found me a spot at 754 South Wabash. I liked it because it was near the huge Hilton Hotel where conventioneers stayed year round. Conventioneers like to party on blues. They could walk from the Hilton to my place in just a few minutes. It was bigger and cleaner than the Checkerboard, and I was all set to name it the Dew Drop Inn, after the famous Dew Drop Inn in New Orleans where Guitar Slim played. My lawyer, though, said there were legal problems with that name, so I’d better come up with another. I settled on Legends because I was dedicating the club to all the legends—Muddy, Walter, Wolf, Sonny Boy, John Lee, B. B., and all the others—who had schooled me.
The location proved good, and business was much improved from what I’d been experiencing. It’s hard to be too unhappy when you’re making money. I was feeling good.
I was feeling even better when Eric invited me over to London for his Prince Albert Hall concerts. That’s when I got to be good friends with the great piano man Johnny Johnson.
Johnny was famous for playing with Chuck Berry. He’s the Johnny of “Johnny B. Goode.” I never met him before, so when I got to my hotel and saw a note from him saying he wanted to have breakfast the next morning, I was excited.
At 8 a.m. I heard a tap on my door. I opened it and saw Johnny.
“You get my note?” he asked.
“I was just fixing to meet you at the breakfast restaurant,” I said.
He pointed to an attaché case he was carrying and said, “I got our breakfast right here.”
He opened up the case and brought out a bottle of Crown Royal.
“Any objections?” he asked.
“Johnny,” I said, “I’m so happy to meet you that I’ll go along with any kind of breakfast you want.”
As we drank, he started telling me how “Johnny B. Goode” was something he wrote with Chuck. He said he was a writer on almost all of Chuck’s hits.
“I came up with the rhythms and the music,” he said, “and Chuck wrote the words. Back then I thought whoever wrote the words wrote the song but later came to learn that the music is worth half. Tried to make some kind of deal with Chuck, but Chuck wouldn’t talk. ‘I wrote, “Roll Over Beethoven,” Chuck said to me. ‘That was my idea.’ ‘Yes,’ I said to him, ‘but that was the only lyrics.’ ‘The lyrics,’ said Chuck, ‘sold the song.’”
Took Johnny a while, but he did sue Chuck, though by then too much time had passed and I don’t think he got any money. I was able to give him money, though, for appearing at Legends several times. I also got to play with him, and although no one could ever match Otis Spann, when it came to the keys, you didn’t wanna fuck with Johnny Johnson.
In August of 1990 Clapton called and said he was coming to Chicago, where him, the Vaughan Brothers, and Robert Cray were playing an outdoor concert in Alpine Valley, a ski resort in Wisconsin eighty miles outside Chicago. I wasn’t on the bill, but Eric wanted me to come along to jam.
I knew Eric had given up drinking and drugging a long time before this, and he told me that Stevie and Jimmie had also stopped. Everyone was in great shape. To celebrate I was cooking a giant gumbo at Legends the day after the concert.
On the way to Alpine Valley Eric said to me, “Hey, Buddy, haven’t heard a record from you in a while.”
“That’s ’cause I don’t have a deal.”
“That’s crazy. I’ve copied all your old licks. How am I going learn your new licks if you don’t have a new record?”
I had to laugh.
“I’m going to take you into the studio myself,” said Eric.
“Anytime, baby, any place.”
When we got to the venue, it was like old homecoming week. Stevie and Jimmie were healthy and happy. Hadn’t seen Stevie since July of last year, when he came to Legends to join me on my birthday. Jimmie told me how he’d quit the Fabulous Thunderbirds to make this tour with his baby brother—first time they’d ever toured together. On stage Jimmie would put his arms around Stevie while they played on the same guitar. It was a beautiful thing to see.
Stevie’s set was blazing hot. He did everything but jump on his guitar and ride it to the moon. When he played my song “Leave My Girl Alone,” he looked at me in the wings and winked. I appreciated that. Never heard Stevie wail so hard. I got goose bumps. I felt proud. Just like Muddy had felt he had raised me, I felt like Stevie was my boy.
“How the hell am I going follow this?” asked Eric, who was standing next to me and waiting to go on.
“All you can do is try,” I said.
Eric had no problems. He was the star of the show, and the crowd loved him. I do believe that, pound for pound, Eric Clapton is the most popular man to ever pick up a guitar.
After his set he brought me out, and all of us—Jimmie, Stevie, Robert Cray, and Eric—jammed on “Sweet Home Chicago.” Whenever I’m around, Eric always calls that tune. We wore it out, and the fans went home smiling. Backstage, with everyone glowing, Eric talked about how we’d be together again at his concerts at the Royal Alpert Hall in London. He was gonna bring us all in.
To avoid the mess of traffic, helicopters were flying us all back to Chicago. Stevie was eager to get back, so he got the last seat on the first chopper. I went up in one with Eric and Eric’s manager. The fog was coming in, and that made me a little uneasy, but I figured that ’cause choppers went straight up, we’d be above the fog in no time. We were.
Landed at Midway, where I said goodnight to Eric and reminded him that I was cooking a gumbo and the whole gang was invited.
“You can’t really cook, Buddy, can you?” he asked.
“You’ll see for yourself. This thing is gonna be so bad it’ll hurt your mouth.”
We hugged and went our separate ways.
Went to sleep and, as usual, got up early in the morning. I was off to buy shellfish for the gumbo. It was gonna be an all-day creation.
First call I got was one of my daughters.
“Daddy, daddy!” she was screaming all hysterical. “Are you dead?”
“What you talkin’ ’bout, girl? How could I be dead if I’m talking to you?”
“They said you were on a helicopter that crashed last night.”
“No helicopter crashed last night.”‘
“That’s not what they’re saying on the news.”
“What they saying?”
“People were killed.”
“Which people?”
“I don’t know.”
Next call I got came from someone who had the facts.
“Been a terrible accident,” he said.
“Everyone alright?”
“No. Stevie’s dead.”
Stevie’s dead. Those words didn’t make no sense. I was sure I heard ’em wrong.
“Say again,” I said.
“Stevie’s dead.”
“Stevie Ray Vaughan?”
“The chopper carrying Stevie and three guys from Eric’s team backed into the side of a hill after takeoff. Them and the pilot were killed on impact.”
I just flopped. I crumbled. I couldn’t say or do nothing.
Stevie’s dead.
With the rest of the world, I cried for Stevie. He was a shining star that fell out the sky just when his star was on the rise. Wasn’t no reason for it except for something my folks always said: “When your time’s up, ain’t nothing you can do.”
Day of his funeral I had booked a big gig with Carlos Santana at Legends. Me and him was playing together, and the place had been sold out for months. I asked Carlos what he wanted to do.
A spiritual cat, Carlos said, “I don’t think it’s about what I want to do, Buddy. I think it’s about what Stevie would want us to do.”
“Stevie would want us to play the blues,” I said.
And that’s what we did, dedicating the night to him. We played our hearts out, but our heads weren’t righ
t. When it comes to thinking how we lost Stevie, my head still isn’t right.
Wasn’t until I played with Eric at Prince Albert Hall that I saw Jimmie again. That was 1991. Was the first time Jimmie played in public since his baby brother had passed. When we jammed together, I think Jimmie was able to grieve the best way a musician knows how. That’s when we let the music carry our tears.
After one of the concerts at Prince Albert Hall a man introduced himself to me as Andrew Lauder. Said he was the boss at Silvertone Records. Turned out that Silvertone was in London, but they was owned by Sony. Was I willing to sign with Silvertone?
Was I willing?
Hell, more than willing, I’d been waiting for this chance for years. I guess you’d have to call Chess a major label in the blues, but they never paid nobody major money—and besides, they never knew what to do with me. I did some things for Bob Koester’s Delmark, but that was a tiny company. Vanguard was bigger, but they just wanted the Chess sound.
“You can sound any way you wanna, Buddy,” said Lauder. “I believe you’ve been under-recorded and recorded wrong. We want to bring out your fire.”
“Let’s do it,” I said.
“It’ll help to bring in a producer.”
“Who you got in mind?”
“Do you know John Porter?”
“No.”
“Do you know Roxy Music?”
“Just the name, not the music.”
“Well, John was their bass player for a while, and then their producer.”
“He English?” I said.
“Yes. Does that count against him?”
“No, that counts for him. Jimi Hendrix didn’t have no hits till he came to England. I’m seeing England as good luck.”
“We’re seeing you, Buddy, as one of our most important artists.”
