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Damn Right He's Still Got The Blues
Posted on Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Damn Right He's Still Got The Blues

The World is Buddy Guy’s Stage with Shure UHF-R® Wireless
  
CHICAGO, IL, August 6, 2008 — Five-time GRAMMY®-winning blues legend Buddy Guy has been an inspiration to luminaries including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

 

Widely revered for his musicianship, his showmanship remains within a league of its own, marked over the years by wild leaps off amplifier stacks, playing his guitar with his feet, teeth, a handkerchief, drumstick, or behind his back while hanging upside down from the rafters, and during walkabouts into the audience at the end of a 150 ft. cord.

 

"Matter of fact I used to even go outside at the end of a cord," Guy recalls of days past. "One night at a show in Buffalo I actually walked out, got on a bus, and drove off. The driver was kind enough to stop and let me off before I stretched the cord too tight."

 

Guy's offstage adventures with his guitar have been abetted in the present tense thanks in no small part to the addition of Shure UHF-R wireless to his repertoire. Now, having effectively cut the cord, he has given added range to his journeys and gained the benefit of superior sound quality and reliability as well.

 

"Well, without Shure...I don't know," Guy admits with earnest thoughtfulness. "There are a lot of things I'm doing that I just couldn't do. They're the best you have ever seen, y'know. I'm always confident when I'm using this stuff, and I'm not just saying that. It works."

 

Guy may be assured of his wireless going on with the show night-after-night, but looking at the bigger picture, one can't help but marvel at how he keeps his place in the show when he's playing outside of a venue on the street or in other areas distant from the stage without in-ear personal monitors.

 

"Well, sometimes I might get lost," he confides with a laugh and wry grin. "Then I have to just play a fake game and stop until I hear some kind of beat coming off the stage. You can't rehearse this, but if you play with a band long enough, they know. If I lose time and come back into the building, they'll start right off when they see me. If you're in my band, you have to really be paying attention to what I'm doing and be ready to pick up and play at any time."

 

On Sunday, July 20, Guy was presented with the first-ever Great Performer of Illinois Award at a ceremony in Chicago at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, which he held up and dedicated to “Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, the late, great Junior Wells — all the guys who helped make Chicago what it is today with the blues.”  This award came just two days before the release of his latest album, Skin Deep.
 

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