Rock and Roll and Blues Hall of Famer Buddy Guy returns with Skin Deep, his first studio album since 2005's Bring 'Em In. The 72-year-old music icon has, over the course of his illustrious career, won five Grammys, 23 W.C. Handy (Blues Music) Awards, Billboard Magazine's Century Award, and the Presidential National Medal of Arts. The man is a bona fide national treasure.
Since Bring 'Em In, Guy released his first career-spanning box set Can't Quit The Blues and is featured in Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones film Shine A Light, stealing the stage from Mick and Keith on a ferocious cover of Muddy Waters' "Champagne and Reefer."
To commemorate the release of Skin Deep, BC Magazine is pleased to present a special edition of our regular multimedia Goodie Bag series. In this edition you will find links that will allow you to stream cuts from the new record. We also have a YouTube video of Guy playing the title track from this new album in a solo electric setting.
Skin Deep is 12 songs, 58 minutes, and features guest appearances from Eric Clapton, Robert Randolph, the husband-wife duo of Derek Trucks (Allman Brothers Band) and Susan Tedeschi, and pre-teen prodigy Quinn Sullivan. I've often wondered why a guitarist of Guy's pedigree would bring in other players for cameos on his records. It turns out he has an answer for that.
"I just try to get the best players, and hope I can pop the top off this can and show that the blues are back," said Guy. "I learn from them — bring them in and see what they can do. And these guys got me feeling like when I was 22 years old and went into the studio with Muddy Waters."
Article comments
1 - Joe
I used to love Buddy Guy! I tried catch him at every blues festival and every show. However; I don't care too much for Buddy Guy anymore because he never gives other young black musicians male or female a break like he does the white ones (Derek Trucks, Johnny Lang and any 9 year old white kid at every show.)
At concerts I've been to, he acts like he doesn't even see or appreciates his black fans-young or old but yet, he will go out of his way to go up and talk to white fans and will let their kids play his guitar.
I also think he is a black sexist. He never appears on stage with another black female blues guitar players and yes, they are out there. He only appears with black singers who don't play.
I have to tell about my experience at the concert I went to at the Cain's Ballroom on 12/10/2008. The Cain's Ballroom is a place that was ran by racist white people in the 30s 40s 50s and 60s. It was a place where black people couldn't even work cleaning toilets let alone enter in to go to a show.
As I watched the show, he made me sick to my stomach. He was playing this one song and there was this young black boy about 10 years old right down front in middle of the stage just 2 feet away from Buddy Guy. This little black kid was clamouring for Buddy's attention and begging for Buddy Guy to give him just one lousey guitar pick that he kept occassionally throwing out into the crowd and over this kids head.
Buddy Guy just ignored this black kid and walked over to the left of the stage where two white kids about the same age as the black kid stood with their hands in their pockets looking at this old black man yelling and screaming. He acknowledged them and even offered his guitar for one of them to play. The kid shook his head "no" and was not the least bit interested.
When he left the stage for a solo during the song, "Drowning on Dry Land" , he went out of the way to get one of those same white kids to play his guitar. He took one of the kid's hand and made him strum his guitar. The kid didn't even care and yet he walked right past this black kid who looked like it would have made his world if he got the chance to do that. The black kid look so disappointed that he just gave up and walked away. That was heartbreaking to watch.
He sang the song, "Skin Deep" to all the white folks in the audience as if he was going to die if they didn't like him or accept him. Is this just a ballad to his white fans or only a lesson to all races...even his own? I am noticing a lot of black artists doing stuff like this to their black fans when they become accepted by white mainstream America.
Black artists like him seem to forget the black people who came to see them when they weren't famous and who bought there records when they first got started and after they became famous.
I get so sick of him ass-worshiping the Rolling Stones saying that they made blues popular. The Stones wouldn't be shit without black music. They just made it acceptable to white kids just like Elvis did with black music in 1950s.
I think he is lying about influencing Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix is dead and can't defend himself. Buddy Guy only wishes he could be 1/4 the guitar player and genius that Hendrix was. To me Buddy Guy is a sloppy and shrill guitar player who uses weak gimmicks to cover for it.
Buddy guy is an "uncle Tom" and a "Reverse Racist"
2 - Josh Hathaway
I'm at a complete loss here. Those are some very strong, harsh accusations to fling based largely on anecdotal evidence.
Putting that aside, the man is a blues legend and a genius. Even if I accepted the idea that he's not a particularly good person -- and I don't -- he's still a great musician and wouldn't be the first great musician to not be the best person.
3 - Carie
Pretty harsh judgment, IMO. You may not know the whole situation, either. Being a friend of a well known artist, I've seen him HAVE to do just that because the same people show up at the shows 20-30 times per year & expect him to constantly give them something or sign for them or whatever. You know they're walking straight out the door & selling whatever he gave them on e-bay. I don't know that this is the situation here, but it's a possibility. I've been to a couple of Buddy's appearances & I've never noticed him ever being a reverse racist. I find it a shame that the word racist even has to exist in this day & age.
4 - Nola8181
Buddy Guy is a great musician.I can't deny that.He kind of favors white people a bit.He does music with Eric Clapton.Correct me if Im wrong but didn't he called Jimi Hendrix a "Spade" when Hendrix was over seas trying to make a name for himself?Hendrix was covering a song performed by a white musician that Clapton knew at the time.So why would Buddy deal with a person like that?I understand that sometimes black people have to "play the game" to get where they need to go in this life most of the,but if this true what joe said above me,then that's pretty horrible how he handled that black kid.