In the late '50s, when Buddy Guy was just cutting his chops as a guitarist with Big Poppa John Tilley in Baton Rouge, La., he used to get such bad cases of stage fright that he had to chugalug a mixture of Dr. Tichenor's antiseptic and wine just to get up on the bandstand.

As anyone who's seen the reigning master of the blues can attest, it's hard to believe that this musical dynamo could ever fear the stage. Buddy is a 63-year-old whirlwind, stalking the stage with the energy of men half his age, never hitting a bad note and always -- always -- offering up a storm of tasteful licks and soulful vocals.

Yet Guy insists he still has to take his "medicine" before every one of his 200 gigs a year.

"Only thing is that now it's cognac," Guy laughs from his home southwest of Chicago. "Oh yeah, I still get nervous. You're always playing to the audience and I always go on stage with the idea that 'OK, you may not like me, but I am going to give you a show. Let me keep you happy for the time I'm up here.'"

The blues veteran cites his earliest idols and influences, Guitar Slim and T-Bone Walker, as inspirations for his fiery showmanship.

"The thing about music is it has to be entertaining," he explains. "That's what those guys did all the time. And if you go to church in The South you'll hear music and you'll see people jumping up and shouting out and enjoying themselves, and blues music comes from that same place. It's exciting."

Though Guy has been recording since 1965, it's only in the last decade or so that he's really enjoyed any commercial success and financial security. His earliest sides For Chess and Vanguard established his reputation but he recorded for a patchwork quilt of labels in the '70s and '80s, never quite getting the promotion or the airplay he deserved.

Since hooking up with Silvertone Records, however, Guy has been selling albums, filling concert halls and winning Grammy Awards (three and counting to date). Yet he still laments the state of the blues in today's music world.

"When I was coming up, the bluesmen used to say the kind of the things the rappers used to say on their records today but we couldn't do it on record, 'cause it was too hot," he recounts. "And nowadays there are no blues stations and blues records get played on rock stations at 3:30 or 4 a.m. I try and do my best for the blues every night, but it doesn't get a lot of respect from radio."

Accordingly, Guy still keeps a busy bluesman's schedule, preaching the gospel of blues guitar and sorrowful blues laments. He's averaged 200 shows a year for decades and when he's not on the road he's not averse to heading down to his own Buddy Guy's club in Chicago to sit at the bar or jump up onstage and joining in.

"You just got to do it, man," he laughs when asked what keeps him going.

"Or maybe it's the red beans and rice."

Following an early summer swing through Canada's jazz festivals, Guy is headed out with B.B. King on a tour that should make blues aficionados simply drool.

"I got a pretty busy year this year," he admits. "And going out with B.B. will be fun. I told him that I just wanted to sit out in the audience and watch him play and he said to me 'Don't give me that shit, son. You're out with me you're gonna get up and play,' so I guess we're gonna have some fun."

The kind of fun only Buddy Guy can create.