Phone menus give Buddy Guy the blues

Unlike his tech-junkie friend B.B. King, blues singer and guitarist Buddy Guy doesn't have much patience for keeping up with technological advances.

Where King has his tour bus equipped with the latest in WiFi, iPods and other gadgets, Guy says he doesn't have much affinity for tinkering with his own website or the other facets of 21st century life for most musicians.

"If I call my bank for some information, and I hear that voice that says, 'Push 1 for this' or 'Push 2 for that,' I just hang up, get in my car and drive down there so I can talk to somebody," Guy, 72, said in the portable dressing room reserved for him Tuesday in Century City, where he was taping a soon-to-be-posted installment in the "Nissan Live Sets on Yahoo! Music" series. The performance is expected to be posted in October.

He even keeps things relatively low-tech in the realm of the electric guitar for which he's widely revered. On Tuesday, he toyed with feedback, setting his Stratocaster atop a speaker cabinet and using a simple hand towel that he raised or dropped over the neck to control the strings' vibrations.

Just another example of the showmanship he learned early on watching Chicago slide guitar master Earl Hooker, whom he once saw enter a club playing guitar while riding on the shoulders of a gargantuan associate.

"I tell B.B. and the others, 'I can't outplay y'all, but I can outdo you.' "

-- Randy Lewis

Read more about Buddy Guy's performance and the Nissan Live Sets on Yahoo! Music series.

Photo of Guy by Chris Pizzello/Associated Press

 

Comments

[Stratoblogster]

I think keeping things simple in life is partly how Guy stays focused on his music and people.

[justcallmelater]

I'm 51-years-old. Just getting off VA prescribed morphine and music has been the healing force for my soul after my wife's death. I took up the guitar and have been learning it since May and it helps to wail out the pain of the broken heart through the strings of the Fender Stratocaster. I've got WiFi in my home, but I was slow to accept it. Music is ancient and connects with our very being, but new technological advances irk me. A Blackberry? I don't text. I have a camera phone for those quickly snapped shots to preserve history in my lonely life. Musicians, publicists, actors, actresses and more have been good to me since exploring the ancient path of healing with music ... via blogging. I accept some technology, but not others. Don't know why.