Buddy Guy’s Still Got the Blues for India

On February 11th and 12th, Mumbai’s Mehboob Studio will host the 11th edition of the Mahindra Blues Festival. The event, which returned last year after a one-year absence due to COVID-19, was held at Bayview Lawns in Mazgaon as the single-day Mahindra Blues Special. This time, however, the event will return to its original home with the full two-day experience.  

The lineup for the 2023 edition includes the likes of Kolkata group The Arinjoy Trio, Argentine musical maestro Ivan Singh, Mississippi’s own Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, the iconic Taj Mahal and, of course, on his last ever India tour, the king of the blues, Buddy Guy.   

Buddy Guy and the Mahindra Blues Festival are synonymous. This will be the American musician’s sixth performance at the event, making him by far the artist who has graced this festival’s stage the most times.

Although he has returned frequently to the festival, attendees hardly ever complain about having heard him play before. This might be due to the fact that he’s one of the few living blues legends. A glimpse of Buddy Guy performing songs such as “Feel Like Rain,” “Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues” or “Mustang Sally” is the kind of stuff that dreams are made of.  

As someone who has influenced not just blues musicians but countless of other artists too, Buddy Guy is one of those larger-than-life individuals. Not only is he an ace musician, but when we met him for an interview in Mumbai in 2020, he also came across as down-to-earth and humble. In that same interview, he talked about how he made his own guitar as a youngster from wires and nails and pieces of wood from a screen porch door. He said, “It was a little box, a chemical thing that you fight the mosquitoes with. So, I put a hole in it, took a piece of wood, nailed it and tried to make it sound like a guitar.”  

From those early years to later being inducted at the Kennedy Center Honors, Buddy Guy’s career has truly been remarkable. As the 86-year-old musician embarks on his final India tour, this is something that is definitely unmissable for any Indian blues lover. Don’t miss his dramatic, eye-catching smile along with his polka-dot Strat since – like earlier – he is sure to captivate the audience at this year’s Mahindra Blues Festival as well.