[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16608-16609]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          TRIBUTE TO BUDDY GUY

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is my pleasure today to recognize Buddy 
Guy, who was recently honored here in Washington at the Kennedy Center 
for his contribution to the arts.
  George ``Buddy'' Guy was born in 1936 into a Louisiana sharecropper 
family. He first learned to play music on handmade instruments.
  With no money, Guy moved to Chicago in 1957 at the peak of the 
Chicago's blues era. A stranger introduced him at Chicago's 708 Club, 
where he eventually landed a steady gig. He also played at other local 
venues, and eventually he signed a record deal. Chicago connected Guy 
with legendary artists and allowed him to play guitar with blues greats 
like Muddy Watters and Howlin' Wolf. However, it was not until his 1991 
release of ``Damn Right, I've Got the Blues'' that his career started 
making national headlines. The album earned him his first Grammy Award 
for Best Contemporary Artist and five W.C. Handy awards.
  After that, the awards started streaming in. He earned 5 more Grammy 
Awards and 18 more W.C. Handy awards--more than any other artist. In 
2003, he received the National Medal of Arts for his extraordinary 
contributions to the creation, growth, and support in the arts. He was 
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of

[[Page 16609]]

Fame in 2005 and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2008. Billboard 
Magazine gave him the Century Award for distinguished artistic 
achievement, and Rolling Stone ranked him at No. 23 on the list of 100 
Greatest Guitarists.
  If that is not impressive enough, Eric Clapton once described him as 
the best guitar player alive. And Guy's songs have been covered by Led 
Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, Stevie Ray Vaughan, John 
Mayall, Jack Bruce, and others.
  Although Guy was born in Louisiana, today Chicago, IL, is proud to 
claim him as one of our own. In 1989 he opened Buddy Guy's Legends in 
Chicago, and it remains one of the most successful blues joints in the 
city. He has been called Windy City's reigning blues artist and the 
last strand linking the immortal Chicago bluesmen of the 1950s with the 
contemporary blues scene. Mayor Rahm Emanuel called Guy a ``great 
Chicago treasure.''
  As one of his album titles suggests, he ``Can't Quit the Blues.'' 
Even well into his seventies, he is making music. Guy tours constantly, 
appearing at blues clubs and festivals around the world, and he won his 
most recent Grammy in 2012.
  President Obama called Guy ``one of the last guardians of the great 
American blues.'' And on December 2, Guy was recognized at a White 
House reception as one of the 2012 Kennedy Center honorees for his 
contribution to the arts.
  As Guy said himself, ``From picking cotton in the field to picking a 
guitar in the White House, that is a long ways man.''

                          ____________________