A friend of mine once asked me what the biggest difference between Buddy Guy and Jimi Hendrix was.
My answer: "A plane ticket."
At Chess, you played by the rules if you wanted to work. Maybe it was that way at every American label. All the new and experimental recording techniques were coming out of London at that time. Leonard Chess wasn't looking for any innovators, just sales. A bull headed entrepreneur who gave the public what they wanted and paid his artists whatever he thought was their fair share. It was the only place in town for black musicians to strut their stuff. They got you out there and kept you there. As the world changed around it...it didn't. In spite of Chess' rigid, non-artistic outlook on the music business, the label spawned more music innovators in a short time than probably any other label in history.
When you think on Hubert Sumlin, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon and of course, Buddy Guy all in the same room at one time, it's hard to believe somebody ain't making it up. Like some condensed version of history to make it all fit into a two-hour movie. But facts are facts. All you have to do is read a personnel list on any given song from those early Chi-town blues years to let you know that what was...was. But being black in America was neither a selling point nor a novelty in the early sixties, and certainly not exotic, the way Hendrix must have seemed to a waiting, jungle fevered London blues scene.
I've opened for Buddy a few times over the years, including at his club, Legends, during his annual three week long January marathon of gigs he stages every year. I'd play my set and then watch him rip through his take-no-prisoners show. The thing about Buddy that's different from most musicians young or old is his willingness to go out on the limb at every show I've ever seen. He digs the uncharted waters, no matter how treacherous and is willing to fall flat on his face, just as long as some new unexpected musical moment happens. I've seen him stop a song dead in its tracks and start another one the minute he feels it ain't getting him there. Nothing pat about his shows. This ain't no by-the-numbers blues review. And when he finds that shining moment, all of us along for the ride start purring like kittens. The other thing I've noticed is the wild emotional ride he takes himself on while he's playing. The anger, the evil, love, joy, sadness and sex are all right up there in plain view. It actually has scared me a couple of times. Almost like staring into the eyes of a killer. There's no mistaking it when you see it. Too much truth. He'd make a lousy lawyer.So it was with some anxiety that I committed to having Buddy appear on my bi-weekly radio show on XRT called The Eclectic Company. I wasn't sure which Buddy I was going to get. The possessed gunslinger? The soul shouter? The quiet, shy Buddy? Then there was the aspect of performing a couple of songs together on the air. Would he rip me a new one? For some reason all this stuff swam through my mind the night before the taping. Realizing I hadn't picked up my Dobro in a while I decided to spend a little time before bed warming up my hands and soul so that tomorrow I wouldn't have to introduce myself to my own guitar. My son was playing his guitar in the other room, so I decided to invite him in and teach him how to play the blues, as I needed someone to play off of, unaware of the rare poetry this moment would resonate just ten hours later when the next person I'd be dueting with was Buddy Guy.
I showed up at 9:45 in the morning at the station, fifteen minutes before the very prompt Mr. Guy walked through the door. As it turned out, all my worries were for naught. Buddy was as kind and polite a man as anyone I've ever talked to. His life was an open book full of insider stories on those early days of Chicago blues as well as his growing up in the poor and often cruel South of the last mid-century. This is neither a man basking in his own good fortune of recent years nor a bitter warrior of the unheralded past. He is the last great ambassador of a historic time and place in our American history and has accepted the role of setting the record straight with truth and generosity. His stories were funny, tough, to the point, and sometimes a little sad.We spoke on Little Walter for a while after playing one of his early Chess sides. Buddy recalled how before Walter, no one had ever electrified a harmonica and had made it wail and cry like him. How he had single handedly changed the instrument forever. At this point in the conversation Buddy's voice was filled with emotion. He went on to say that it seemed a crime that the Hohner Company (harmonica maker) had never made a harp under his name or acknowledged his contribution to the instrument at all. At this point, I realized if I didn't change the subject soon Buddy would probably burst into tears, so we moved on. As our conversations continued, I began to realize how tough it is to be in Buddy's position. He's more like a widower than a conqueror. You can hear the sadness in his voice when he speaks on a musician from his past that couldn't hang on long enough to finally get the recognition they deserved. So few colleagues left. So few conversations now that a nod or a wink will suffice. No more inside jokes amongst fellow travelers. Just protégés like myself, waiting and hanging on every word.
We played a couple numbers together and in his true gentlemanly form, Buddy gave me the solos. Dig that!
In closing, I thanked Buddy for being my guest on the show. I told him that my birthday was in a couple of days and that this was the best present a boy ever had. He asked me how old I was going to be. "Forty-six," I said. He said that when he was out with Muddy back in the day, he was the young one. On his birthdays the old guys would ask him how old he was and he would tell them. He then said to me, "Now I'm going to tell you what they used to tell me: Forty-six? You're still wet behind the ears."
(The Eclectic Company radio show with Buddy Guy can be heard at 10pm on Tuesday, January 10th on 93.1, WXRT or streamed at 93xrt.com)
Nicholas, I just read about your radio interview with Buddy Guy, more of this is what we need on Sharkforum, beautiful. I am cuban and I grew up listening to great afro-cuban music,
love the Delta blues. Look forward to listening to the interview on Jan. 10th.
Very moving, Nick. Wish I could listen to this program via the web, but all I have is a bunch of Mac OS X, Linux, and Unix boxes, plus one WinXP laptop running Firefox and Opera browsers, none of which functions with WXRT's '90s-vintage media streamer, as you know.
In spite of Chess' rigid, non-artistic outlook on the music business, the label spawned more music innovators in a short time than probably any other label in history.
Maybe that high degree of innovation occurred precisely because of Chess's "outlook" on the music business, rather than in spite of it.
I’ve been told by XRT that their stream will become mac compatible some time in the early year. Believe me, I’ve made my feelings about this vocal, as well as passing on a few emails like yours. Sorry for the frustration. Hope they get it together soon.
As for Leonard Chess, perhaps I should explain “non-artistic” a little better. Having a record president who is not an artist is no big deal, providing he stays in his office and out of the recording studio. I’ve been on a few so-called big-time recording sessions over the years in which an executive producer insists on the band playing take after take until we get what he feels is the magic one. Usually we spend the whole day chasing those first couple of takes until we get one that sounds like the first one.
Here’s a good example of Chess on the same recording date: Chuck Berry’s first recording for Chess was on a song entitled, “Ida May”. Chess didn’t like the title. There was a lipstick tube someone had left in the control room. Hence the name change to “Maybelline”. Good idea for a pop tune. This is when he should have left the room. As it turns out, the single was finished 27 takes later. 27 takes?! No fucking way. Not that band.
I’ve known a lot of Chess musicians over the years that have told the same kind of story. It was his way or the highway. He wouldn’t let you try anything out of the ordinary unless he was sure it would make money. To his credit, once he knew that it would, he went all the way with it. But, I think, it was this same controlling attitude that eventually brought down Chess.
In closing, I have a lot of respect for the Chess family and label. Leonard’s contribution is enormous. He was a great businessman, but that’s as far as it goes for me.
Oh, for sure, Nick. I was just suggesting that perhaps it's because Leonard was a great businessman that Chess's product and massive output was so clearly superior to that of any competing label at the time (or since). Chuck Berry, for example, certainly had no success when he left Chess to record for Mercury, regardless of the fewer number of takes he may have enjoyed there.
In any case, I think the business vs. art dichotomy is inapplicable in a purely commercial endeavor like that of Chess Records. Those musicians were there to make a living, not an opera, and in so doing they required the abilities of a businessman, not an artistic director. Considering the vast catalog of amazing Chess recordings still readily available to us today, I guess I'm just glad that, say, a Johnny Otis wasn't minding the store....
P.S. Good news about WXRT's planned streaming audio upgrade; thanks!
I think you’re 100% right. In fact I think we’re both right. We’re just not in the same room at the same time. So, as I think you’ve nailed it on the head, the most I can offer is a good read on the subject. Check out “The Record Men: The Chess Brothers and the Birth of Rock & Roll” by Rich Cohen. Rich is a great writer who’s written a book on the Chess family and their little label. You might have heard of his other book “Tough Jews”, about Murder Inc. Rich told me he likes to write about the early immigrants of the last century or as he put it, “The guys that did all the heavy lifting for this generation.” Anyway, it’s a great hard-boiled read and a different angle from which to view the Chess story.
Take care, Nick
Here's a link to the book:
www.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall05/032750.htm
No, you're 100% right. Heh. Seriously, you're absolutely correct that we're coming at this from different perspectives and that each is valid in its own context.
Thanks for recommending Rich Cohen's book; I'll check it out. In the meantime, here's an interesting glimpse of the town that Lejzor and Fiszel Czyz called home before they headed for Chicago:
www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/motol