All Axess recently caught up with legendary blues guitarist Buddy Guy for our brand new segment ‘Ask The Expert.’ The guitar extraordinaire was kind enough to give us a few words of wisdom on how to become a better player, and why he likes to keep a low profile about his incredible ability. Check out the video below.
Buddy said that players in today’s day and age have a distinct advantage over their predecessors, thanks to the advances in modern technologies. “I didn’t have the technology that you guys have. You can go buy instructional videos and things like that. I had to take a 7″ record and figure it out in my own ear, mind, heart what everyone was doing…” He added, “So now you have that advantage with that, you should be much better than me.”
The esteemed guitarist explained that the key to becoming a better guitar player, as with anything, is persistence and a positive mindset. “As much time as you can spend, not only with guitar but with everything else that you wanna do, the more time you spend with it the better you are. And don’t ever let yourself tell you that you’re not improving.”
Buddy added that he wasn’t even aware of his capabilities until he was told about them by a couple of guitar gods. “I was in a rut until someone else told me. I didn’t know who in the world I was until I heard from the late Hendrix and Eric Clapton, and I said, ‘what? I didn’t know I was doing anything.’ And they said, ‘Oh yeah man, you were standing out.’”
Despite the compliments of many of guitar’s greats, the ever humble blues legend prefers not to be known as the maestro that he is. “I didn’t go out and say, ‘yeah man that’s me, I did that, I made that. I still don’t do that….When I gotta prove to someone who don’t know who I am that Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton have said something good about me, I gotta go out show you the reason they said something good about me [laughs].”
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