Fender's new Strat Sessions video is a very special one; a blues legend and one of the most exciting talents to emerge from the scene in the last decade. Buddy Guy knows guitar talent when he sees it, just as he saw it in fans Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page back when he visited London in the '60s to find a new generation entering the blues. Now he sees it in Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram.
The two players are meeting at Buddy's Legends bar in Chicago to talk Strats for the model's ongoing 70th anniversary celebrations, but this feels bigger than that; it's one of the last living original blues icons giving a young player his respect and wisdom. And that admiration coming right back in return.
"When I heard you play, I said, 'That sounds something like Guitar Slim, BB King and myself'," Buddy tells Christone. "I've got to talk to you, to get to know you."
The two jam together and Buddy tells Christone of how he visited the UK in 1965 to find three young future guitar heroes in waiting.
"There was Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton sleeping in a van," recalls Buddy. "And when I got to know them they said , 'I didn't know a Strat could play the blues'… All of them went and bought Strats after they saw me play in England in 1965."
When I'm playing for the audience, I say, 'Buddy pick that guitar up and give it the best you've got and it'll give you the best it's got'
The 87-year-old's commitment to "keeping the blues alive" has continued through his life – including opening a blues club on the south side of Chicago in 1972. He still owns the Buddy Guy's Legends bar he opened in the city in 1989 to this day. And always with a Strat in his hands.
"You can beat it, you can scratch it but you can't stop it from playing," he says. And his philosophy on performing hasn't changed. "When I'm playing for the audience, I say, 'Buddy pick that guitar up and give it the best you've got and it'll give you the best it's got'. That's the way I look at it every night I play the guitar."
Buddy and Christone close the video by performing the former's Five Long Years together, with Buddy ad-libbing a little Fender shoutout in the lyrics. There's something magical about watching these two bluesmen playing Strats and trading licks and vocals in an empty blues club, proving just how potent the 70-year-old electric guitar design can still be in the right hands.
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