Buddy Guy To Receive Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award Tonight
By Selena Fragassi in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 8, 2015 9:00PM
A major Chicago artist is poised to get some love during the Grammys broadcast tonight (7 p.m. CST on CBS), and no we’re not talking about that Kanye West's performance with Paul McCartney and Rihanna that will likely hold our collective attention for “FourFiveSeconds” tops. Rather, blues legend Buddy Guy is set to receive The Recording Academy’s esteemed Lifetime Achievement Award at the 57th annual awards show, in a tribute offered up by guitarist Jeff Beck.
“I truly cannot think of another instrumental artist who has done so much after coming from such humble beginnings. Buddy's early experiences in the Chicago blues circles back to his time at Chess Records sitting in with Muddy Waters all led him to the pinnacle of the blues 'n' rock genre,” said Beck in an official statement posted on Grammy.com. “For over a half century now, Buddy has blended the genres of blues and rock and roll like no other performer, before or since. His live concerts are legendary and the music world would be a very boring place without his influence. I know that my guitar wouldn't sound half as good if I hadn't heard his first.”
This is not the first distinguished award for the still very active 78-year-old Guy, who came to Chicago from Lettsworth, Louisiana in 1957—a move that found him in the good graces of Muddy Waters, inked him early deals with Chess and Delmark Records, found him demigod status amongst an elite circle of players like Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix and resulted in opening his own Legends nightclub in the South Loop in 1989 where he still plays his month-long residency every January. In 2012, Guy received a Kennedy Center Honor alongside British greats Led Zeppelin and in 2004 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yet tonight’s Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award was still a surprise—if only to him.
“I said, ‘Why me? There are so many other great people,’” Guy recently told NBC Chicago. “[But the Academy] said, ‘You have earned it,’ [so I said], ‘Thank you very much. I will be there with bells on!’”
Anyone who watches this video of Guy knows there no question he deserves it.
Need a way to pass the time during the typically bland broadcast before getting to Guy’s segment? Try Chicago Sun-Times’ Grammy Drinking Game.