Chicago legend Buddy Guy plays the Rialto as one of the last of the 'old blues guys'

Buddy Guy, 83, is a Grammy Award-winning blues guitarist and singer. He performs more than 130 gigs a year, including a January residency at his Chicago blues club, Buddy Guy's Legends. And he'll be playing Joliet's Rialto Square Theatre on Saturday, Feb. 29.

He talked about his long career in an interview.

Q: People have said you're the last great bluesman. Do you think that's true, and have you tried to help the younger generations carry it forward?

A: Well, that's my worry right now. I got a new album coming out sometime later this year, and Bobby Rush, he sung one song on there. We were just talking; he said, “You know what, I think me and you are the last two old blues guys still trying to carry it on.” Because it's not like when I came to Chicago 63 years ago. Everything was wide open then, but you had to prove yourself. You could go in a little small blues club, and somebody might pay attention to you. Word-of-mouth would get out, then the next day you might be in a bigger club. And Muddy Waters would say, “Who in the hell is that?” Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter would say, “Who is that?” Those little clubs don't exist no more. So whenever I can see somebody I think got the talent, I'll just give them a chance to come up and play with me. A young man out of Mississippi, Kingfish (Christone Ingram), I went and heard him, and I said, “Just bring him in the studio, and I'm going to pay for the album.” And he's up for a Grammy now. Before him, I went and found a little kid in New Bedford, Massachusetts, named Quinn Sullivan.

Q: Do you remember when somebody first heard you and gave you a shot?

A: When I came (to Chicago), I could play, but I didn't think I was good enough because there was so many great guitar players. I was almost too shy to play. But a guy talked me into playing. And I said, “If I go up there, I better jump off the stage so somebody pays attention to me, because I can't play as well as these other guitar players.” There was a great guitar player in New Orleans named Guitar Slim. He'd get attention because (while) he was playing, he was jumping off the stage and running. He had a 100-foot cord. When I first saw him, I said, “Oh my God, I would love to learn how to play like B.B. King, but I want to act like Guitar Slim.” So when they called me up — the late Otis Rush called me up — I jumped off the bar. And somebody said, “They got a little wild man just come up from Louisiana.”

Q: You've had a lot of big moments. What was the most exciting?

A: When B.B. King asked me to come up and play while he sang, and Muddy Waters asked me to play while he sang. I'm saying, “You're asking me to play with you?” Muddy Waters and those guys took me under their wing. I owe everything to those people ...

My biggest break came when Eric Clapton invited me to Royal Albert Hall. And I think it was 1989. And that's when I signed the record deal and got my first gold record. I wrote a song called “Damn Right, I've Got the Blues.” That's when I exploded and started going from driving around the country in a van — driving myself, my own manager — and playing the small blues clubs to being able to play the theaters and invited to play in some big outdoor places like the New Orleans Jazz Festival.

Q: You've played the guitar for so many years. Is there an emotion, something you've tried to pull out of it or say with it that you haven't been able to?

A: A lot. Because every time I hear somebody else play, even youngsters — these two kids I told you about earlier — Quinn Sullivan and Kingfish. I'm saying, I've been fooling with this guitar 60 years or more, and I didn't find what you just played. (Laughs.)

Q: So do you go then and try to figure it out?

A: I try to keep it. The older you get, the less you can memorize it, but I try to keep it. And you know, I'll be trying to find a lick, and all of a sudden I hear something good. But that ain't what I was trying to find. And I'm surprised, like: What did I do? If I was reading music, I probably wouldn't be like that because I would probably know where to go by reading it. But playing by ear, you just say, “Now I wonder where he had that note?” And you just keep hitting and hitting and hitting. And all the sudden, you hit something and say, “Oh, this sounds pretty good.” Like if you're looking for a dime that you dropped, and you found a quarter. The Foo Fighters, (Dave Grohl) heard me say that and he wrote a song about that.

Q: You've said that you've never made an album that you liked. Is that a good thing or not?

A: I don't know. I really can't answer that. I got that from B.B. King. Because, if you sing or play or whatever you do, if you listen to yourself, very seldom are you happy with it. But if somebody else come and say, “Boy, she's good,” then that makes you feel a little better about what you have done. Some nights, I go out there and play and say, “Man, I was killing them.” And a guy walks up to me and says, “You wasn't feeling too good last night.” And it turns it around: I go out there and say, “Oh my God. I sounded like nothing last night.” And then a guy or a woman will come up and say, “Boy, you was on last night.” I'm like, “What?” I think that's what keep me going. You never know when someone is going to say you're on top. Because if you're always right, what you got to look forward to?

Buddy Guy

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 29

Where: Rialto Square Theatre, 102 N. Chicago St., Joliet, (815) 726-6600 or <a href="http://rialtosquare.com">rialtosquare.com</a>

Tickets: Start at $45