Phil Guy, Soulful Chicago Bluesman

Phil Guy, brother of George "Buddy" Guy, was a fine self-styled blues musician who performed extensively during the 1970's thru early 2000's. Unique to Phil Guy's style was his use of a soul sound flavor in his tunes and performances. No doubt, under the shadow of his elder and more widely recognized brother, Buddy, he strived to be a down-to-earth performer in the smaller clubs in and around Chicago, Illinois.

Born in Louisiana during April 1940, Phil followed his brother into the clubs, learned to play guitar and sing the blues. Also, arriving in Chicago, Phil started by working a day-time job and then performing gratis and with other known mucisians at the south and west side clubs of the big city. Phil really paid his dues earlier in his career!

Phil ventured north in April 1969 and began working immediately with Buddy in his bands. Often, they played in the basement at Theresa’s Lounge on 48th & Indiana.

At that time, Phil’s (29) and Buddy’s (33) musical styles had gone different directions. Phil was more into funky songs by Jimmy Reed and James Brown. His method was a deep picking, penetrating and searing style like Albert King. Buddy’s approach was skilled Chicago blues like Muddy Waters, straight picking yet mixed with electrifying Guitar Slim style showmanship and powerful vocals. However, whenever these two blues brothers jammed together, their styles complimented each other exquisitely.

Soon after his arrival in Chicago, Buddy invited Phil to join his band on a trip to Africa sponsored by the U.S. State Department. “The trip was a huge success,” Phil said.

“The Africans had heard of James Brown and Muhammad Ali but knew nothing about the blues. They were so amazed with the music they thought Phil’s strings were magic and stole them right off his guitar!”. Sadly, Phil Guy passed away during 2008, and he has been sorely missed by his soulful & bluesy fans ever since. He lives on though, through his musical recordings.

More coming as we have time to investigate further. Meanwhile, have a view at the latest videos harvested covering Phil Guy's music.

All for now.....

Bleus

Robert Nighthawk - Blues Guitarist

Robert Nighthawk was one of the most distinctive guitarists and vocalists of the 1950's and early 1960's around the Chicago blues scene. Nighthawk was a country kind of musician, who lived on the southside and performed at many of the clubs in the big city during his mid-life years. Known to busk a bit with other musicians at the Maxwell Street Market, Nighthawk often performed his blues music style to throngs of Sunday market goers. Nighthawk is remembered for the live album that was recorded during the summer of 1964 at the sidewalk of a vacant Maxwell Street property lot just adjacent to Halsted Street. Fantastic tunes were performed that day with his accompanying blues buddies; a treasure for us to listen to decades later!

All for now....

Bleus

Wanted to post a comment about Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield). God Father of the Chicago Blues scene. Although a soft spoken individual, less educated than most, he was, nevertheless, an essential contributor to the electric amplified blues music genre. Multiple '45 and '33 long-playing vinyl sides during his career. Muddy Waters was most of all, an urban small club entertainer that ruled among his peers on the south-side of Chicago's night life scene.

Enjoy the collage of photos....

Rgds,

Bleus

Howdy to my friends!

Starting the Bleus' Blog postings with a little note covering Buddy Guy, the most thrilling of Blues Musicians roaming around the world currently. Check out the slide show with some photos of BG doing the festival scene recently. More on that and other Bleusy things coming soon.

Cheers,

K.J. Bleus
MadCity, Wisc USA