I don’t know if I can answer that. You know, when they put a Robert Johnson CD out a few years ago, it went gold—and he had been dead 40 years. B.B. King told me the record he did with Clapton, Riding with the King, was the biggest-selling record he has ever made. But let’s be honest— when you’re black, it doesn’t matter how good a blues record you make, you’re not going to get it played on these big radio stations unless some super guy like Eric Clapton or Stevie Ray Vaughan plays the same thing you played. That’s just the way it is. Blues has been like that ever since I’ve been alive—it has been ignored until some rock group gets it, plays it to big audiences, and tells them whose music it is. But, I guess that’s why we still sing the blues. I just look at it like a prizefighter— if I don’t get in that ring and risk getting knocked out, I ain’t got a chance to win.
It makes me feel great, because some of the things that people like Eric Clapton and Keith Richards and the late Stevie Ray Vaughan said about me have helped me more than any record company. So many kids come up to me and say, “I didn’t know anything about you until I read what Eric Clapton said.” That gives me a big lift. - Buddy Guy
( The whole Buddy Guy segment is my favourate on the Shine a Light doco/live film, what a performance ! - Ed )
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