The legendary blues guitarist brings the ‘Buddy Guy 90’ tour to Meijer Gardens on Monday, just 10 days before his 90th birthday. The Local Spins interview with Buddy Guy.
Ageless Bluesman: Buddy Guy returns to Meijer Gardens on Monday. (Photo/Chelsea Whitaker)
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After a life dedicated to music, it’s no surprise that Buddy Guy would celebrate his 90th birthday by going on tour to do the thing he loves most: sharing his love of blues music with audiences all over the United State.
The legendary blues guitarist brings his “Buddy Guy 90” tour to Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park on Monday, just days before his actual 90th birthday.
Fans can expect to hear plenty of iconic hits spanning Guy’s extensive career, including tracks from his 2025 release, “Not Done With the Blues.” Tickets, $95 for non-members, are still available for the 7 p.m. concert online here. His daughter, Carlise Guy, will open the show with The Nu Blu Band.
In a recent conversation with Local Spins, Guy spoke warmly about the blues musicians he admired and eventually became friends with when he was just getting started. Casually mentioning household names such as B.B. King and Muddy Waters, Guy shared some of the advice he received from them and credits them for inspiring him to play music.
“I never dreamed of meeting them. I just wanted to watch them and, come to find out, I must’ve played the right note and they made sure I met them, and we became close friends. I’m speaking of Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Lightnin’ Hopkins,” Guy said.
“Those are the people that influenced me to say, ‘Maybe I should try that, just for the love of music because the music brings smiles on people’s faces.’”
It’s hard to imagine someone as influential to the blues genre as Buddy Guy trying to work up the courage to start playing music, but even the most iconic musicians can benefit from being inspired and encouraged by fellow musicians.
Championing the Blues: Guy (Photo/Nathan Purchase)
“If I wasn’t influenced by the late John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, I don’t know if you’d be talking to me now,” said Guy.
When asked how he approaches shows and keeps things fresh after more than 70 years of performing, Guy relayed some advice he received from B.B. King: “Son, let me tell you something. I don’t ever play the song the way I could record it. I wished I could.”
Guy’s philosophy for performing these days is simple: Go out and give the best show possible. He said he hopes people will really listen and take in both the music and the meaning behind it because blues music has a rich history in the United States, immersed in the experiences of people of color and documenting the emotions they felt living through major historical events.
It has become more important than ever to engage critically with art and music, and Guy continues the tradition of using the blues as a way to speak up about the state of the world and protest against injustice, just like the artists who pioneered the genre in the 1860s.
In Guy’s 2025 track, “Upside Down,” he sings about inflation, poverty and the inaccessibility of health care, calling it “a damn dirty shame” that the world has turned upside down.
While blues isn’t a prominent genre in popular culture and its presence is notably lacking in the Billboard charts and commercial radio play, numerous young, up-and-coming blues musicians clearly appreciate Buddy Guy’s determination to keep the genre and its cultural significance alive and relevant. Larkin Poe, Selwyn Birchwood, Hannah Wicklund and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, along with many local and regional artists, are just a few examples of the younger generation’s efforts to keep the genre alive.
“You could turn on the radio when I was 12, 13 and 14 years old, if you had a radio, and you would hear gospel, you would hear jazz, you would hear blues. . . and nowadays, if you ain’t got satellite radio, you don’t hear Muddy Waters or B.B. King, unless some of the British white guys play it in their way and you hear it, and you think they did it,” said Guy.
It’s impossible to talk about society’s current attitude toward blues music without bringing up 2025’s box office hit movie, “Sinners” in which Buddy Guy was featured as a cameo. “Sinners” pays homage to 1930s Delta blues with its score and its unforgettable musical performances, bringing blues back to the forefront of popular culture in a way that it hasn’t been for a long time.
Guy shared a story about going into the same grocery store he’s been going to for 35 years and being recognized by the cashier from his role in “Sinners.” He recalled that the cashier screamed “You’re in a movie!” and admitted that, “I’ve been knowing you all that time and I didn’t know you was a musician.”
So it’s his mission and the motivation behind his tour to spread the power of the blues — keeping people of all ages discovering, re-discovering and appreciating the genre and its proponents.
“As a musician, I don’t think you can ever please everybody. If you could, the whole world would listen,” he reasoned. “So I just go out and don’t be the best in town, I just try to be the best ’til the best come around.”
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