Buddy Guy, with Special Guest: Tom Hambridge, to Perform April 4 at UB

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Center for the Arts, University at Buffalo, will present Buddy Guy on Monday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m. in the Mainstage Theatre, located at the Center for the Arts, North Campus. Buffalo native Tom Hambridge will open the concert.

Buddy Guy returns by overwhelming demand after his incendiary performance at the Center for the Arts last April. At age 74, he's a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a major influence on rock titans like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn, a pioneer of Chicago's fabled West Side sound, and a living link to that city's halcyon days of electric blues. Buddy Guy has received six Grammy Awards, 28 Blues Music Awards (formerly W.C. Handy Awards), the Billboard magazine Century Award for distinguished artistic achievement and the Presidential National Medal of Arts. Rolling Stone ranked him in the top 30 of its "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time."

With his new album Living Proof (2011 Grammy winner for Best Contemporary Blues Album), Guy takes a hard look back at a remarkable life. Asked what exactly it is that he considers himself living proof of, Buddy Guy answers modestly -- he doesn't mention his talent or his influence, but focuses instead on his perseverance. "Do you know how many guys I started out with who just threw up both hands and quit?" he says. "My first wife said to me, 'It's me or the guitar,' and I picked up my guitar and left."

About his performance at the Center for the Arts last year, The Buffalo News said, "Guy and his band turned the gorgeous acoustics of the Mainstage Theatre to their advantage, realizing early on that they could 'play the room.' This meant bringing things way, way down, with Guy singing off mic and the band grooving at the edge of audibility at times. This drew the crowd deep inside the music and made for startling emotional and sonic crescendos when the band would bring it back up again, culminating, inevitably and gloriously, in a blistering Guy solo."

Tom Hambridge will open the concert. The Buffalo native is a Grammy-winning songwriter, singer, producer and drummer who has worked with the likes of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Johnny Winter, Susan Tedeschi and Meatloaf. Hambridge co-wrote and produced Buddy Guy's recent Living Proof album. He is a member of the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame.

Tickets for Buddy Guy are $43.50 and $39.50. Tickets are available at the Center for the Arts Box Office (Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.to 6 p.m.) and 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.