You might be cool, but you will never be Buddy Guy cool.
If you are a student of the blues, you know that Buddy Guy is one of its elder statesmen. Part of his appeal is his signature guitar, a polka-dot Fender Stratocaster, a unique instrument. No one else has a guitar that looks anything like it. But why polka dots?
As a Black person born in Lettsworth, Louisiana, in 1936, Buddy learned the blues the hard way.
His parents were sharecroppers, so his childhood consisted primarily of picking cotton. He first began playing the guitar on a Diddley bow that he made himself.
When he was in his early teens, he graduated to playing an actual guitar that a friendly man in his neighborhood bought for him. The man saw him sitting on his porch each day, trying to figure out how to play the dilapidated or homemade instruments that he had available to him, and he took pity on the young Buddy, buying him a Harmony acoustic guitar.
Buddy used this gift to full effect. As he became older, he began to play with bands in and around Baton Rouge, but he eventually decided to move to the city with, at the time, the biggest blues music scene — Chicago.
This was a tough decision for Buddy, since his father had recently died and his mother, Isabell, had fallen ill. In fact, in the late 1950s, as Buddy was preparing to move to Illinois to pursue music as a career, he had a discussion about it with his mother.
Her health was failing by this point, so to make the blow of leaving softer, he promised her that he was going to go to Chicago, make a lot of money, and come back to buy her a polka-dot Cadillac.
Buddy moved to Chicago and soon fell in with blues legend Muddy Waters, who hired him and helped jump-start his career. Unfortunately, his career didn’t take off in time. Isabell passed away in 1968, just a few years before Buddy made it big.
As a way of honoring his promise to his mother, many years later he contacted Fender and started ordering polka-dot guitars. He can also be seen wearing polka-dot shirts in many live shows.
Buddy Guy eventually made it big. He worked with such greats as Muddy, Howlin’ Wolf, and Koko Taylor. He influenced an entire generation of bluesmen such as Eric Clapton, SRV, and Jimi Hendrix. He continues to have a successful career even in his mid-80s. He even owns a popular blues club in Chicago, Buddy Guy’s Legends.
Buddy Guy is a true blues legend, but the coolest thing about him? He never forgot his mamma.
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