My New Favorite Buddy Guy Story
DrWu
4,021 Posts
My friend shared this with me last night, had me rolling.Story takes place circa 1988 in Portland at the infamous Key Largo club, which is now Ohm, a local techno spot, but was yacht rock fern bar central in the 70s and 80s, hosting a variety of adult oriented blues and rawk acts and the occasional AOR burnouts like Quarterflash. The house specialty was a giant mound of cheese covered nachos.So my friend had seen Buddy play there a year before and was mesmerized by the whole 150ft chord, playing in the street shtick that was his stock in trade during this time. Half way through his set, Buddy has his roadie pull out the 150 footer and proceeds to shred all over the place, in the street, out back and finally in the women's bathroom. Dude is in their for several minutes banging away. He finally emerges still firing all the way back to the stage. Out of the women's WC comes a rather tall black woman in leopard print, looking ready to kill someone. Buddy is oblivious to her presence as he's in a trance like state or more likely heavily liquored and herbed out. The sister walks over to a table, picks up a massive plate of nachos and then deposits the whole thing on Buddy's face and all over his guitar. Stunned, the band stops playing and there is an audible gasp as the packed house waits to see what Buddy is gonna do to this broad. According to my friend Buddy gently wipes the guac off his face, plucks a soggy tortilla chip off his stratocaster and then returns to soloing using the tortilla chip. The place goes totally apeshit. And the woman storms off.Buddy Guy is the king of 
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Comments
Please to elaborate.
this is from the wikipedia entry:
Fern Bar is a slang phrase for an upscale or preppy (yuppie) bar or tavern usually decorated with ferns or other "fussy" plants, as well as such decor as fake Tiffany lamps. The phrase came into common use in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Typical drinks served included wine spritzers or pina coladas. Franchises sometimes labeled "fern bars" include T.G.I. Friday's, Bennigan's, Houlihan's, etc.
Fern Bars were a gathering place for well-dressed "upscale" young men and women, pejoratively felt to be more interested in seeing each other and being seen than in simply drinking and talking, as might be expected in a "bar-bar" (i.e. a local dive or watering hole, etc.)
Fern bars were not synonymous with Gay Bars, although some regular bar patrons thought of them as quite effete.
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I can't believe there's actually a dictionary entry on this. But fern bars were all the rage in the late 70s. Slightly yacht rock AOR related (notice the name of the bar was very yacht-like Key Largo). The other fern bar cliche was exposed brick walls which Key Largo also featured.
Fern bars do not shred.
fussy plant get your head right.
funniest shit i've read all day.
it took me a good 5 minutes to realize that you meant "150 ft. cord" and not some sort of musical move i had never heard of. i'm sitting here thinking, "what the hell is a 150 ft chord? was that some band that made that chord famous?"
Best Portland club back in those days was the short lived Louie's La Bamba. Saw Jr Wells and Buddy Guy there early 80s. Terry Robb and Robert Cray opened the show.
Jr and Buddy had the worse pick up band they had brought up from Cali. Jr couldn't do Messing With The Kid or any other of his standards because the band could only play I IV V shuffles. Plus the band was out of tune. Cray sat in and he was working like mad trying to keep the band together and give the music some finess.
Drunk guy in crowd keep screaming for Terry Robb to come back out. Robb was doing a Hendrix thing at the time with Ike Willis (see new lifesavas) on vocals. Jr finally gave up and Buddy, Robert and Terry just did a big stupid guitar jam.
Saw them again at the Rainbow in Seattle a few years later. They had a Chicago band that was killing it. Jr was drunk as hell and Buddy was doing the long cord thing. Both shows I got the impression that Buddy and Jr hated each other more than Terry and McGee.
1) Check out the Buddy Guy footage in the "Festival Express" movie. Great stuff.
2) Speaking of fern bars what is it with bars taking half Mexican, half-Irish names? In Atlanta we had Carlos McGhees but there are hundreds of variations thereof.
I guess they serve beer and spimonti.
My friend said that after that Key Largo show Junior and Buddy split forever. Junior was drinking heavily at the bar with some hundred year old white broad. When time came for him to perform, he couldn't really make it to the stage, couldn't sing or play harp. That was their last show together. Friend heard this from the bassist who you spoke about earlier.
!. Buddy sounded kinda off on the festival express clips I saw. Look for AC Reed in that band though.
2. The king of these joints would be Carlos O'Briens in Mazatlan.
Irish-Americans love tequila but often will
only drink in a bar with an Irish name.
Or, it solves the problem of serving food at
an Irish bar, as Irish food is inedible to all
but the most diehard native - so, open an Irish
pub but sell tacos & enchiladas to the hungry drinkers ...
To be avoided.
You're such a snob. Those places have great nachos.