“I said to myself, ‘Well, Buddy, you better hang on a little longer. My health ain’t doing too bad, so… I just try to play the best I can”: Buddy Guy says he’s not retiring until the blues gets a higher profile

Buddy Guy has revealed that despite thoughts of retiring, he’s not ready to hang up that polka dot Strat quite yet. It’s a decision the 88-year-old blues icon say is directly related to his concern over the state of the blues.

“I thought about retiring twice,” Guy admits in a new interview with Guitar Player. “But 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.

“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 on stage, just try to play the best I can.”

That mission statement has guided Guy since he first found his spiritual home among the Chicago blues greats in the mid-20th century. Now, nearly 70 years on from his relocation to the city and acceptance into a circle that included the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, Guy says he still fears the genre is not getting its dues.

“The blues has been treated like a stepchild,” Guy tells Guitar Player. “Your big FM station don’t play our music anymore… If you’ve got satellite radio, you can hear a little more, but they don’t play the deep stuff.”

Guy points to the excitement of younger generations when they do get to experience blues music first-hand, noting that kids as young as seven will still approach him after shows to express their enthusiasm.

“[It’s] not me – the blues,” he clarifies. “When they hear it, they love it. They just ain’t hearing it enough, so… that’s why I’m still here.”

The bluesman does point to one ray of light in terms of mainstream perception – noting that his cameo in Michael B. Jordan horror movie Sinners does seem to have caused a stir.

“I’ll do anything to help the blues, and that family [in the film] is kinda based on the blues,” observes Guy, in the same piece. “[So] I think Sinners might help it a little bit, ’cause maybe some young kids will be like, ‘Wow, I saw that movie. I like what he played. I wanna try that.’”

Guy’s surprise cameo in the vampiric juke joint thriller earlier this year certainly caught people’s attention – and he had an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in May – but as Guy explained to Guitar World in 2023, around the time of his ‘farewell tour’, he’s having to be selective about his appearances.

“I can’t tour the world anymore,” said Guy. “I’m too old to be jumpin’ from town to town on a bus. I’ll still be playing guitar; I’ll do that until I can’t. And I’ll keep making music, but I’m at the age where my heroes passed away. I’ve gotta keep that in mind.”

Head to Guitar Player to read Guy’s full interview.