CONTACT:
Andrew Seraphin
The Wilbur Theatre
Seraphin@TheWilbur.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Buddy Guy Comes to The Wilbur
WHAT: On Sunday, June 7th, 2015, Buddy Guy is coming to The Wilbur in Boston’s historic Theatre District.
“Every time we would finish a session,” says Buddy Guy, “if everybody felt good about it, we’d say, ’Let’s do another.’ You need about 14, 15 songs for an album, but we had passed 18 songs and I said, ‘Man, when is this going to be over?’ But they kept throwing songs at me, and every damn thing we cut sounded pretty good. I got the word back that the label thought maybe it was a good idea to put two CDs out—one of them the slow stuff, more for listening, and the other, like B.B. King said, if you want to boogie-woogie all night long.”
The result has a title both simple and clever: Rhythm & Blues, the first double-album set of his storied career. But more than five decades into a life as one of the world’s leading bluesmen, Buddy Guy is used to new surprises, challenges, and accolades.
At age 77, he’s a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a major influence on rock titans like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, a pioneer of Chicago’s fabled West Side sound, and a living link to that city’s halcyon days of electric blues. He has received 6 Grammy Awards, 28 Blues Music Awards (the most any artist has received), the Billboard magazine Century Award for distinguished artistic achievement, and the Presidential National Medal of Arts. Rolling Stone ranked him in the top 25 of its “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”
2012, in fact, has proven to be one of Guy’s most remarkable ever. He was awarded the 2012 Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime contribution to American culture; earlier in the year, at a performance at the White House, he even persuaded President Obama to join him on a chorus of “Sweet Home Chicago.”
Also in 2012, he published his long-awaited memoir, When I Left Home, and released Live at Legends, which has been nominated for Best New Recording in the Living Blues Awards. Meanwhile, Guy keeps looking to the future of the blues through his ongoing work with his 15-year-old protégé, Quinn Sullivan.
Now the story continues with Rhythm & Blues, 21 tracks which feature contributions from a stellar and wide-ranging set of guests, including Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Kid Rock, Keith Urban, and Brad Whitford of Aerosmith and rising guitar wizard Gary Clark, Jr. “If you watch a ballgame, it seems like those guys are angry at one another, but when they finish playing, they go out and have drinks together,” says Guy. “Musicians were doing that before anybody—we don’t have rivals as far as who can outplay who, but we have so much fun letting other people think that’s what it is. So it’s really a blessing to have all of these guys on here.”
Though Buddy Guy will forever be associated with Chicago, his story actually begins in Louisiana. One of five children, he was born in 1936 to a sharecropper’s family and raised on a plantation near the small town of Lettsworth, located some 140 miles northwest of New Orleans. Buddy was just seven years old when he fashioned his first makeshift “guitar”—a two string contraption attached to a piece of wood and secured with his mother’s hairpins. On the new album, he recounts these days on such deeply personal songs as “I Came Up Hard” and “My Mama Loved Me.”
In 1957, he took his guitar to Chicago, where he would permanently alter the direction of the instrument, first on numerous sessions for Chess Records playing alongside Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and the rest of the label’s legendary roster, and then on recordings of his own. His incendiary style—still in evidence all over Rhythm & Blues—left its mark on guitarists from Jimmy Page to John Mayer. “He was for me what Elvis was probably like for other people,” said Eric Clapton at Guy’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2005. “My course was set, and he was my pilot.”
These many years later, Buddy Guy is a genuine American treasure, and one of the final surviving connections to an historic era in the country’s musical evolution. And still, as one glorious track on Rhythm & Blues puts it, he claims that “All That Makes Me Happy is the Blues.”
For tickets and more information about The Wilbur and other great events visit https://wilburboston.wpengine.com.
WHEN: Sunday, June 7th, 2015 – 7:30 PM
COST: $40.00 – $85.00
WHERE: The Wilbur | 246 Tremont Street | Boston, MA 02116 | 617.248.9700
TICKETS: Visit www.wilburboston.wpengine.com, or call the box office at 617.248.9700
About The Wilbur:
Celebrating 100 years, The Wilbur, nestled in Boston’s historic Theatre District, is the premiere destination for comedy and music in Boston, MA. Built in 1914 by The Shubert Brothers, The Wilbur opened in 1915 and was named for The Shubert Theatre’s manager A.L. Wilbur. Recently revitalized by former Comedy Connection owner Bill Blumenreich in July of 2008, The Wilbur has become a first-class venue showcasing A-list comedians and musicians. A Comedy Central verified venue, the theater has attracted the best of the best in comedy including Aziz Ansari, Louis CK, Kevin Hart, Katt Williams and Jim Gaffigan. They also boast award-winning musicians from all genres such as Boyz II Men, Lauryn Hill, Lyle Lovitt and Smoky Robinson. Offering an intimate show setting, The Wilbur provides the perfect environment for enjoying comedy sensations and chart topping artists in the heart of Boston’s historic Theater District.
The Wilbur is located at 246 Tremont Street in Boston, MA. For more information, please visit www.wilburboston.wpengine.com, or call 617.248.9700.
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