It was three years ago that Buddy Guy announced his Damn Right Farewell Tour and talked about winding down his touring career.
But you might have noticed that, at 89, the dude is still performing and enjoying the success of his latest album, Ain’t Done With the Blues.
More to the point, Guy is preparing to return to the road in celebration of his 90th birthday on July 30. His BG90 North American Tour kicks off on July 15, 2026 at Massey Hall in Toronto.
Guy tells Guitar Player he’s given serious consideration to retirement but feels an obligation to keep going.
“I thought about retiring twice,” he says. “But, y’know, I thought about all those great blues players who are no longer with us — B.B. King. Lightnin’ Hopkins, all those guys — and they used to tell me, ‘You need to keep playing and keep representing the blues,’ ’cause they don’t play it on radio or anything anymore.
I’m still doing what I’ve always done. Every time I get onstage, just try to play the best I can.”
— Buddy Guy
“So I said to myself, ‘Well, Buddy, you better hang on a little longer. My health ain’t doing too bad, so I’m still doing what I’ve always done. Every time I get onstage, just try to play the best I can.”
Guy has certainly been rewarded for that over the past 60-plus years. He has nine Grammy Awards — including a Lifetime Achievement nod — a Kennedy Center Honor, a National Medal of Arts, a Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement and inductions into the Rock and Roll, Musicians and Louisiana Music halls of fame.
There’s a marker honoring Guy on the Mississippi Blues Trail, and his profile was bumped again last year by an appearance in the hit Ryan Coogler film drama Sinners, playing the elder version of one of the story’s main characters and performing the song “Travelin.’”
“He’s inspirational,” says Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, who counts Guy as a valued mentor.
“When you hear him play, you just know that’s the way it’s supposed to be done.”
Tom Hambridge, the Nashville-based producer who’s helmed Guy’s last seven albums — from 2008’s Skin Deep through Ain’t Done With the Blues — is not at all surprised that farewell did not really mean goodbye.
“This is what he knows,” Hambridge explains. “He seems very content living on a stage — ‘Put a guitar in my hand and lead me to the stage and I want to play with people.’ That’s what he’s been doing his whole life.
“And I think he really means it when he always says he wants to keep the blues alive and keep the word he gave to Muddy [Waters] and all of them. He thinks if he’s out there doing it, making new music, he’ll be keeping the blues alive.”
The blues has been treated like a stepchild. When I was coming up you could turn your radio on and you could hear everything.”
— Buddy Guy
You can still hear exasperation and anger when Guy — the son of Louisiana sharecroppers who learned to play on a two-string diddly bow — addresses that mission, as he has for a great many years now.
“The blues has been treated like a stepchild,” he says. “Your big FM station don’t play our music anymore. When I was coming up you could turn your radio on and you could hear everything. You didn’t just hear B.B. King or Lightnin’ Hopkins all day. They played everybody — horn players, keyboard players, guitar players, gospel, jazz, blues. We don’t have that no more. If you’ve got satellite radio, you can hear a little more, but they don’t play the deep stuff.
“My own son didn’t know who I was until he could turn 21 and get into the blues clubs. He said, ‘Dad, I didn’t know you could play like that!’ And whenever we play these little outside theaters, you get these kids — seven, eight, nine, 11 years old — they come and come up, like, ‘Wow, man, I didn’t know who you was!’
“And not me — the blues. When they hear it, they love it. They just ain’t hearing it enough, so...that’s why I’m still here.”
Buddy Guy’s BG90 tour launches July 15 at Massey Hall in Toronto and continues through October 29 at Graceland Soundstage in Memphis.
