Blues Legend Buddy Guy: ‘I Went From Picking Cotton to Picking a Guitar in the White House'

THE EIGHT-TIME GRAMMY WINNER WAS RECENTLY IN MUMBAI TO PERFORM AT THE 10TH ANNUAL MAHINDRA BLUES FESTIVAL

- David Britto

“ I SAVED YOU,” American blues icon Buddy Guy tells me midway through my 10-minute interview with him. Indeed, he did. While we were seated in a hotel balcony for an interview, strong winds

blew down an advertising hoarding that was heading straight for my skull. “I saw it coming. I thought it was paper but it was a little heavier than paper. They need to take those down,” says Guy. He adds, “I saved you with my guitar hand.”

That guitar hand is responsible for popularizing blues standards such as “Mustang Sally,” “Feels Like Rain,” “Damn Right, I’ve Got The Blues,” “Baby Please Don’t Leave Me” and more. Indian blues fans were lucky enough to witness the 83-year-old vocalist-guitarist take the stage and perform some of those hits for the fifth time at the 10th edition of the Mahindra Blues Festival at Mumbai’s Mehboob Studio this past weekend.

Guy – an eight-time Grammy Award winner, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and a Kennedy Center Honorary – spoke to Rolling Stone India about why he keeps coming back to India, former U.S. President Barack Obama, how the price of a guitar went up in 1952 because of the late B.B. King and more. Excerpts:

This is your fifth time back at the Mahindra Blues Festival. What is it about this festival that makes you keep coming back?