Photo courtesy of Jim Garcia

This past weekend I had the pleasure of hopping on my bike with my daughter on the back and peddling five minutes from my house to see Blues legend, Buddy Guy, perform at Mammoth Brewing Companies Bluesapalooza festival in Mammoth Lakes. What a show!

I had a crazy blues obsession in my 20’s; I swore I was a black man in my previous life and a gritty blues player at that. Ha! In this life I am an Irish lad and electric guitar is not my forte, well at least not yet… Any who, something was pulling me to this show and I thought it was my “roots” callin’ me. Or it simply could have been that I was driven by the fact that these living blues legends won’t be around forever and how fortunate I am to see Buddy play in my backyard.

Several years ago, I went to see the late John Lee Hooker for the same reason and I cried as he was helped on the stage and someone placed his guitar on his lap. Turns out this was his last show as he passed away two days later. Buddy Guy who is now 78 looked great and I am confident we will get to see many more shows with him.

Three quarters of the way through Buddy’s set I realized why I was really supposed to be at that show last weekend. I hadn’t been following his recent albums and it turns out that in 2008 he came out with a record called “Skin Deep.” It had a very profound and World Minded vibe to it. Before he played the hit single he made one very simple statement that hit me to my core and I could see impacted the audience as well. Buddy exclaimed, “I love everybody and if the world felt the same way we would have no wars and no fighting.” Not only did I have a deep respect for such a talented blues musician, now I realized that Buddy Guy is enlightened!

Born in Louisiana in 1936 it sounds like he has lived through some hard times and rather than choose to be jaded he has some very profound thoughts on how we are all connected. The power phrase from his hit single is “There is just one simple rule; treat everybody just the same way you want them to treat you.” I went to this blues show not expecting it, but it was confirmed to me that inspiration is everywhere.

Below is a video clip from him performing Skin Deep on Letterman a few years ago. Enjoy!

About Charles Perry

Charles is a bit of a renaissance man, a citizen of the planet, a building inspector by trade, devoted father & husband and one of the funniest people he knows. He is deeply passionate about peace, social justice and respect and equality for all living creatures. Charles thought up the World Minded ideology several years ago and has made it his goal to inspire people around the world to care for themselves, others and the planet we share by exposing what’s right in the world. He resides in the Eastern Sierras and loves life in the mountains, but longs for the beach because of some ridiculous “grass is always greener” notion.

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