CONWAY – Legendary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Buddy Guy will perform live at Reynolds Performance Hall on Thursday, Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m.
Guy has received seven Grammy Awards, a 2015 Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award, 37 Blues Music Awards (the most any artist has received), the Billboard Magazine Century Award for distinguished artistic achievement, a Kennedy Center Honor and the Presidential National Medal of Arts. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #23 in its “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”
In 1957, he took his first makeshift guitar to Chicago, where he would permanently alter the direction of the instrument, first on numerous sessions for Chess Records playing alongside Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and the rest of the label’s legendary roster, and then on recordings of his own. His incendiary style left its mark on guitarists from Jimmy Page to John Mayer.
At age 81, Guy has been a major influence on rock titans like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, a pioneer of Chicago’s fabled West Side sound and a living link to the city’s halcyon days of electric blues. He keeps looking to the future of the blues through his ongoing work with his 18-year-old protégé, Quinn Sullivan, who will also be performing at Reynolds.
“He was for me what Elvis was probably like for other people,” said Eric Clapton at Guy’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2005. “My course was set, and he was my pilot.”
These many years later, Buddy Guy is a genuine American treasure and one of the final surviving connections to an historic era in the country’s musical evolution.
Tickets range from $30-$40 for the general public and $10 for students and children. Call UCA Ticket Central at (501) 450-3265 between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, or toll-free at 1-866-810-0012 or visit www.uca.edu/reynolds.
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