Buddy Guy performed in Cambridge. Copyright Dick Waterman courtesy Govinda Gallery
Buddy Guy:
I didn’t start with no Diddley Bo(w)*. My first guitar was a rubber band on nails attached to my mother’s house wall. And a piece of wire that I could move my fingers on to make sounds. So she could hear me play. I remember thinking then, ‘I can manage this!’ Some people made that story about me and a Diddley Bo. But it was never my thing. I got a guitar and I started to learn real fast. I listened to Arthur Cruddup, Robert Johnson, and those guys. I worked real hard, always listening and learning,” he explains.
“I left Louisiana in around 1957. I mostly lied to get away. I lied to my mother. I ain’t proud but I told her I was going to get a good job, to make some money to send to her. Then when she passed away, I remembered what I’d promised her. I was the oldest boy and when I left I looked her in the eye and told her I’d drive back down there in a polka-dot Cadillac. Well, that just stuck in my mind. I remembered her and how I’d lied! So, I came up with the idea of polka-dot guitars, shirts, ties and a whole lot of stuff. Then a lot of other people got that polka-dot thing too; they come to the club, maybe women with polka-dot bags, guys with shirts and ties. And that’s all because of me!”
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Bluestown Music Interview
* for those not in the know a Diddly Bow was a single string often cigar box homemade guitar
a true Diddly Bow geetar
make you own!
I think Buddy’s point here is that he didn’t even start with a sophisticated diddly bow! he had a arrangement of rubber bands!
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