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Buddy Guy often says - and he says it twice in a recent phone interview - "don't be the best in town, just try to be the best until the best come around."
With all due respect to his parents who fed this kernel of wisdom to their impressionable son, what the hell is that supposed to mean?
That the best there ever was can never be the best there ever will be? Which town are we talking about here? Who is to judge what is the best? Why would someone even temporarily the best care what people think is the best?
Playing tomorrow night at the Mayfield Inn Convention Centre, Buddy Guy clearly cares a great deal what people think, possibly to his own detriment.
He says, "The public is not easy to please. You can see that when you look into their faces while you're playing. They're so hard to satisfy no matter what you do. Even if you're an athlete, they want you to be perfect every time you go out. If you're a hockey player, they want you to score every time you get your stick on the puck."
Nice Canadian hockey reference, but what people might think about Buddy Guy is that he cares too much what people think. It's terribly confusing. Then again, the blues is full of paradox. Fer instance, listening to the blues cures the blues.
As for the delicate craft of trying to please everyone, the 69-year-old bluesman recently pulled a Santana - assembling a star-studded roster to bulk his latest album, tellingly titled Bring 'Em In. Guests include Keith Richards, John Mayer, Tracy Chapman and the crossover man himself, Carlos Santana. Guy says he was actually approached by Santana to do this sort of star-power project before Santana's Grammy-hauling Supernatural even came out.
Guy says, "After Tina Turner got to a certain age, they give up on her. But she proved 'em wrong. They thought (Carlos) was too old. He proved 'em wrong, and he came to me at the Beacon Theatre in New York and said, 'I wanna help you do an album and we can prove 'em wrong on you.' He had recorded Supernatural, but it hadn't been released."
The massive success of Supernatural threw a delay into the Buddy Guy project, but it finally got made and was released last fall. Did it accomplish what it set out to do? Not really. Critics deemed it unremarkable, sales were so-so and the all-important radio airplay didn't materialize.
"People told me I'd get a little more airplay and more of the younger generation of people who buy records would hear it and buy the record and know more about the blues than they do now," Guy says. "It didn't happen. You hear any of this on the radio? No. They don't do that."
He doesn't seem to be suffering too much of the blues over it, and if he is, well, them's the blues. Asked if any of the music on the new album was directly inspired by his recent divorce, the short answer is no. All of life is painful, Guy declares. Blues is a way to deal with pain, and ergo, life is the blues. There's no lack of subject matter.
"The pain was there from Day 1, when you was born," he says. "When you come in this world, you got your pain - before you're married, after you're married, even if you stay with it, you still got something you can sing or talk about. The blues is everywhere. That's why a lot of people don't want to be reminded of it. Listen closely to any blues record. It's got a story in there. If it didn't happen to you, it happened to someone you know."
Of course, fans can read meaning into certain songs - songs, say, like Someone's Sleeping In My Bed or Now You're Gone, even if those two weren't written by Guy, or What Kinda Woman Is This, which was.
Are any of these a reflection of his life - of the heartbreak suffered over his divorce?
Guy takes good-humoured umbrage, "No sir, I'm not going to let you talk me into that. I wasn't even thinking about no divorce or marriage. I was trying to make something to sell some records so people would listen to the blues more."
That statement in itself might give you the blues. Must be an occupational hazard.
With Shemekia Copeland opening, tickets to Buddy Guy are $54 and on sale at Ticketmaster (451-8000).