One of the last of the old Chicago bluesmen still standing, Buddy Guy is still going strong at the age of 87. And arguably the best.

Acclaimed by everyone from Hendrix and Clapton to Jeff Beck, Keith Richards and Mark Knopfler, he served an apprenticeship with Muddy Waters before teaming up as a duo with harmonica player Junior Wells. His first two singles, Sit And Cry (The Blues) and This Is The End, were produced by Willie Dixon.

In 1960 he finally signed with Chess and had his first hit, aptly titled First Time I Met The Blues, but Leonard Chess was not a fan of his eclectic style and used him mostly as a sideman for other artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter and Koko Taylor.

Buddy Guy is known for his eclectic guitar style, incorporating elements of rock, jazz and whatever else takes his fancy into the blues, and for his flashy stage act – he used to solo along the top of the bar in nightclubs, using a 100-foot lead.

Like most of his contemporaries he was born into a sharecropping family in the Deep South, in Louisiana, and grew up picking cotton, learning guitar using a home-made two-string “diddley-bow” fashioned from wire and tin cans.

Buddy Guy found a more appreciative audience in Europe as the blues revival gathered pace in England, and with the endorsement of Hendrix he was seen as something of an elder statesman of the blues.

Later, when blues had virtually vanished from the live music scene in the UK, going to see Buddy Guy and Junior Wells together was almost a rite of passage; something to tick off the bucket list after seeing people like Stevie Ray Vaughan whom he had inspired to pick up their first guitar.

Say what you like about Eric Clapton but he’d win Mastermind with special subject of blues guitarists and he once declared: “Buddy Guy is by far and without a doubt the best guitar player alive.”

As recently as 2022 he recorded a valedictory album featuring cameos by fans including Jason Isbell, Elvis Costello, Bobby Rush, James Taylor, and Mavis Staples.

In early 2023, at the age of 87, he embarked on his Damn Right Farewell Tour – but it would be no surprise if the blues called him back one more time. “Blues is like American Express,” he once said. “I don’t leave home without it.”

He was a mere stripling of 67 when he recorded this Curtis Mayfield tune, Now You’re Gone, from his 13th album, Bring ‘Em In.