The advice Buddy Guy gave to Billy Gibbons

Playing with the greats of an instrument always teaches a lot. As MusicRadar reports, for example you can ask anyone who has had the good fortune to share a jam with one of the blues guitar champions, Buddy Guy.

Billy Gibbons of the ZZ Top he played with Buddy Guy and talked about it with Jay Mohrstarting from the mission that the now 89-year-old bluesman native of the state of Louisiana seems invested in, that is, keeping the spirit of the blues alive. “He will do it, he will do it and he will do it again, no matter where or when, he just loves doing it.”

Gibbons recalled one of the nights he got to play with us. Al Montreux Jazz Festival they rang “Garbage Man Blues” and then the favorite of the bearded Texan guitarist “Stormy Monday” Of T-Bone Walker. Gibbons explains that he wasn’t ready to play it that night. Was only there to watch the concert of Buddy Guy but… “A friend of mine came up to me and said, ‘Dude, you should participate!’ I replied: ‘I wasn’t invited’. And he goes, ‘Well, don’t you know Buddy Guy?’ Me: ‘I know him. But I don’t know if he knows me.’ Him: ‘But did you record together!?’ Me again: ‘It doesn’t mean anything. He recorded with everyone!’. And he replied: ‘I have a guitar. I’ll lend it to you. Go up. Walk’. And so I did.”

The band was playing
“Stormy Monday”
not the version originally recorded by Walker. After all, this is one of those blues standards that everyone puts their own spin on. He did it
B.B. King
. He did it
Slash
. The
Allman Brothers
they did it (with Gibbons).
Albert King
he played it. That night, Guy and his band were doing it. This is the story of
Billy Gibbons
: “The band saw me coming and the bass player said, ‘Yeah, come on. Come on!’ Buddy had his back to me. They plugged me in. Someone had a spare amp.”

Except that Guy and his band would play the version of
Bobby Bland
which is a little different. Bland’s guitarist,
Wayne Bennett
was more inclined towards jazz guitar, and his version is difficult to reproduce. “The Bobby Bland version, the one on record, included the guitar solo, it was the genius of Wayne Bennett, and it’s one of the hardest guitar solos to imitate. You can get a little close. I started playing it, I almost got it. Buddy Guy turned around, smiling, he knew it note for note.”

Billy Gibbons
he says he took the opportunity to ask the more mature bluesman for some advice. “I said to him, ‘Buddy, you’ve been doing this for so many years with so much success, maybe you have something you can share with other guitarists?’. He said, ‘Yes. When you play, look at the neck of the guitar and pretend you don’t believe what you’re doing!’ I said, ‘Okay!'”