Buddy Guy has become the latest guitar legend to perform on the internet's favorite music stage, the NPR Tiny Desk.
The living blues legend had planned to retire from touring in 2023. He’s since done a U-turn on that decision, and insists he won’t stop performing until the blues get a higher profile.
His starring role in the multi-award-winning Sinners movie has certainly helped that. His stylish four-song set on NPR’s cosy corner stage won’t hurt, either.
Playing a polka-dot Fender Stratocaster throughout, moments like his raw, unfiltered edge-of-breakup guitar solo on Hoochie Coochie Man nod to the blues hero’s unparalleled emotiveness.
It's a cross-generational set, too, with Guy inviting singer and guitarist Miles Caton – who made his acting debut in Sinners, a genre-bending blockbuster with the blues at its heart – on stage. Together, they played Travelin’, and I Lied to You, taken from the film.
“Can we make some noise for the legendary Buddy Guy?” Caton asks while picking up a Gretsch resonator guitar. Sadly, it's not one of the 1930s Dobros that the film's chief composer, Ludwig Göransson, tracked down for the soundtrack.
Travelin' in particular is a stunning performance, with the room quiet enough to hear a pin drop between the call and response of Guy’s twanging start and Caton’s sumptuously soulful voice.
“If you play blues right all the time, you’re wrong,” says Guy, who puts Caton through something of a blues bootcamp.
In all, it’s a playful but heartfelt representation of the blues, full of witty remarks and porcelain dynamics, that prove why, in 2026, Guy remains the blues’ biggest torchbearer.
“I thought about retiring twice,” Guy told Guitar Player last year. “But I thought about all those great blues players who are no longer with us – B.B. King, Lightnin’ Hopkins, all those guys – and they used to tell me, ‘You need to keep playing and keep representing the blues,’ ’cause they don’t play it on the radio or anything anymore.”
With Sinners having scooped up two Grammy wins and a record-breaking 16 Oscar nominations, guitar heroes like Slash going back to their roots, and sets like this, the blues might not be on radio exile for much longer.
