BH- I noticed your tour begins at the Calvin Theater in Northampton before coming to the Garde Arts Center in New London, you couldn’t have picked two more beautiful venues to start with. Do you enjoy coming out to New England?

BG- "Yeah I always have fun when I come out that way. When I first started traveling I hung around Connecticut and Boston a lot. My first manager was Dick Waterman and he was from Cambridge. I had a lot of fun around there and still have a lot of friends around there and I always get excited when I’m invited to go out to that part of the country and play."

BH- I saw where Shemekia Copeland will be opening for you at the Garde

BG- "That’s fine with me, she’s great."

BH- You must have known her dad

BG- "Oh yes I’ve played with him several times."

BH- Lots of blues acts today are touring as part of ensemble these days, do you buy into that "strength in numbers" theory?

BG- "I think the fans like that a lot. There’s something about that, I don’t know what it is, when you’re not really a big super act that can fill arenas by yourself. People love to see two guitar players or two keyboard players jam together. People get excited about that so I’m open to anything. Whenever I come put I try to please the fans. I don’t ever worry about myself, I mean unless I’m not performing well, so my fans are my main concern."

BH – I understand you have a new CD coming out soon, any special guests on it?

BG- "No I don’t have any special guests on it. I went down to Mississippi where we wanted to get into the real roots of the blues. We found a few old guys who never traveled or went anywhere and we took what they recorded and put my stuff on top of it and tried to come up with something special. Hopefully we can sell a few records with it."

BH- Do you have a good feeling about this one?

BG- "You know when people ask me about my records I never have much to say. I let the fans do the talking on that. I don’t like to make comments on it because it took me too long to try to get a pretty good record."

BH- Buddy you were a big part of the Chicago blues scene back when Muddy was the main man and Magic Sam was still alive. What are the differences you see today with the musicians that come through your club "Legends" and how things were back then?

BG- "It’s different you know, the musical instruments are different, the electronics are different. You can’t find the guitars like they were then and naturally you can’t find Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and those people like that. And let me put it to you this way, back in those days I think we were playing a lot for the fun and the love of music. I won’t mention any names but I don’t think young people look at it that way anymore. Most young people are saying now, ‘shit pay me otherwise I’m not gonna play.’ We used to go, this time of the morning on a Monday morning, thirty-five years ago we were jamming man! We called it blue Monday. And you’d find Muddy, me, Wolf, Little Walter, Junior Wells, Walter Horton, everybody in the same joint with a beer in front of them, standing in line to play. Now you can’t get young people to do that. They’ll jam but they won’t get out of bed that early in the morning. I used to think I’m not going to sleep because I’m thinking I’m going to miss something. And we learned a lot from that you know. But today’s young man, and you see I’m not naming out any, I think they all say ‘well I’m good enough to be whoever now so I don’t have to do that.’ But we would never think like that back then. We just wanted to get with one another and learn from one another and play well."

BH- Buddy before "Damn Right I’ve Got The Blues" came out there was a long gap in your recording career. I know Alligator Records released your "Stone Crazy" record back around 1980 so am I wrong or right but couldn’t you have gone to Alligator and made a record anytime you wanted to?

BG- "I don’t know if you’re wrong or right but me and Alligator never did have any good feelings about one another. He (Alligator owner Bruce Iglauer) used to work for Delmark Records where he did the ‘Hoodoo Man Blues’ album for Junior. And it was just some things said in passing. I done forgot all about it by now but it’s just some things had been said to me from him, straight from the horses mouth, I didn’t like. And I’m like Martin Luther King getting hit with a brick. I done got immune to that when I recorded. I didn’t record that much when I was signed up with Chess. They would call me and I would make records with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy, but when it came to me they were like ‘forget it you don’t have nothing.’ But then just before he (Leonard Chess) died he said I had it all the time I was just too fucking dumb to know it. I’m not the hardest guy to get along with you know. I learned how to play my guitar by myself and I don’t need nobody else to teach me to play who’s got a record company and can tell me how to play and what to play. You just let me be Buddy Guy and that’s what I did with ‘Damn Right I Got The Blues’ and everybody’s mouth flew open."

BH- Changing the subject I was recently reading Bill Wyman’s book "Stone Alone" where he talked about the time you and Junior opened up for them back in 1970. What are your memories of that tour?

BG- "I been knowing them a long time before that. The Stones came in to Chess Records trying to get a record deal when I was there doing ‘My Time After Awhile.’ They were standing against the wall and I was wondering who the hell they were until I saw Muddy had brought them in. And we had been close ever since then. Every time they would come around we would get together and hang out. They were so famous when we toured, which was throughout Europe in 1970. To me we was ignored a lot cause when those type of people came to see the Stones and you’re not known they’d just said ‘and who the hell is this, this ain’t the Stones.’ But people heard us and saw that we were on the same stage as the Stones even though they never heard of you. But you just go and do the best you can and hopefully someone there will like you and you’ll sell one or two more records."

BH- Soundwaves Magazine has been around ten and a half years now. The first issue was in August of 1990 the same month as the accident at Alpine Valley where Stevie Ray Vaughan died. Do you ever talk about that when you run into the other people who were there like Clapton, Robert Cray, or even Jimmie Vaughan?

BG- "No we never have, we never talked about it. It was such a shock we don’t talk about that. But it crosses my mind all the time, of course it do. I wasn’t on that show, they invited me to come out and listen to the show. Eric called me up and I flew out on the same chopper with him. And it was such a sad night after such a great time we had. I can’t recall talking to anybody who was on that show about it ever. No, we don’t talk about it because it brings back such sad memories and we rather not be reminded of it even though we know."

BH- I’m sorry I brought it up.

BG- "No that’s ok, you know it happens, that’s life. Like my mother told me ‘if you don’t want to leave here don’t come.’ Sure as hell you come here sure as hell you leave. When and where who knows."

BH- Buddy you look great for your age and your shows are full of energy, what’s your secret?

BG- "Maybe you should put your glasses on next time, you’ll find all the wrinkles. But I don’t know if this is the answer to what you’re asking me but I have never just made a damn fool out of myself because I was a guitar player and a few people noticed me or come to see me. Some musicians I know, and I won’t name names again, it seemed to me that after they have a record they thought they were something different when nothing ever happened to them. Me, I got up this morning by three o’clock. I’m a country boy on a farm. I gets up and I come back in about one or two o’clock and go back to sleep. I go out to my club again about eight or nine and come back in about eleven and do the same damn thing. My body is no different from anybody else’s.

I have to eat, sleep, take a shower, take my rest, and you got to do that otherwise if you don’t do that you’re going out in the world backwards I think. Everybody needs a little rest. My parents taught me that as a kid. I don’t care where you go or who you are you’re still just you and I’m living by that."