Blues Legend Buddy Guy to Perform in UB Center for the Arts on April 7

BUFFALO, N Y. -- The Center for the Arts at the University at Buffalo will present Buddy Guy with Special Guest Tom Hambridge on April 7 at 8 p.m. in the Mainstage Theatre, Center for the Arts, North Campus.

Any discussion of Buddy Guy invariably involves a recitation of his colossal musical resume and hard-earned accolades. He's a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a chief guitar influence to rock titans like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Stevie Ray Vaughan, a pioneer of Chicago's fabled West Side sound and a living link to that city's halcyon days of electric blues.

Guy has received five Grammy Awards, 23 W.C. Handy Blues Awards (the most any artist has received), the Billboard Magazine Century Award for distinguished artistic achievement and the Presidential National Medal of Arts.

Along with this long list of achievements, Guy and his music remain as vital as ever. Guy appeared on the big screen nationwide with a show-stopping performance in Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones concert film, Shine A Light. At the age of 72, he appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone for the first time, as part of the magazine's "100 Greatest Guitar Songs" package (his cataclysmic 1961 recording of "Stone Crazy" made the list).

Guy was born in 1936. By the early 1960s, he was a first-call session man at Chess Records. In that role, he backed the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson. In addition, Guy began to cut a considerable catalog of sides under his own name. By the end of the 1960s, he was staking out new creative territory, and cutting albums for Vanguard. In the process, Guy, the purveyor of a stinging, attacking electric guitar style and wild, impassioned vocals, was capturing the minds of a growing number of rock musicians.

"He was for me what Elvis was probably like for other people," Eric Clapton remembered at Guy's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2005. "My course was set, and he was my pilot."

Tom Hambridge will open the concert. The Buffalo, N.Y., native is a Grammy-nominated songwriter, singer, producer and drummer. He is a member of the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame.

Tickets for Buddy Guy with Special Guest Tom Hambridge are $43.50, $39.50. Tickets are available at the Center for the Arts Box Office from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and at all Ticketmaster locations, including ticketmaster.com. To charge tickets, call 1-800-745-3000; in Canada, call 416-870-8000. For group sales, call 716-645-6771. For more information call 716-645-2787.