Blues icons coming to Penn's Peak

Buddy Guy and Jimmie Vaughan with the Tilt-A-Whirl Band will perform at Penn's Peak at 8 p.m. April 16.

At 79, Guy is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a major influence on rock titans like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan, a pioneer of Chicago's fabled West Side sound, and a living link to the city's halcyon days of electric blues.

He has received six Grammy Awards, a 2015 Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award, 34 Blues Music Awards (the most any artist has received), the Billboard Magazine Century Award for distinguished artistic achievement, a Kennedy Center Honor, and the Presidential National Medal of Arts. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #23 in its "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time."

Guy released his new studio album, "Born To Play Guitar," in July, which debuted at #1 on Billboard's Top Blues Albums chart. The follow-up to his 2013 first-ever double disc release, Rhythm & Blues, which also debuted at #1 on Billboard's Top Blues Albums chart. It features guest appearances by Van Morrison, Joss Stone, Kim Wilson and Billy Gibbons.

Though Buddy Guy will forever be associated with Chicago, his story actually begins in Louisiana. One of five children, he was born in 1936 to a sharecropper's family and raised on a plantation near the small town of Lettsworth, located some 140 miles northwest of New Orleans. Buddy was just 7 years old when he fashioned his first makeshift "guitar" - a two-string contraption attached to a piece of wood and secured with his mother's hairpins.

In 1957, he took his guitar to Chicago, where he would permanently alter the direction of the instrument, first on numerous sessions for Chess Records playing alongside Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, and the rest of the label's legendary roster, and then on recordings of his own. His incendiary style left its mark on guitarists from Jimmy Page to John Mayer.

He was awarded the 2012 Kennedy Center Honor for his lifetime contribution to American culture. He is considered a genuine American treasure and one of the final surviving connections to a historic era in the country's musical evolution.

"I worry a lot about the legacy of Muddy, Wolf, and all the guys who created this stuff," Guy says. "I want people to remember them. One of the last things Muddy Waters told me - when I found out how ill he was, I gave him a call and said, 'I'm on my way to your house.' And he said, 'Don't come out here, I'm doing all right. Just keep the damn blues alive.' They all told me that if they left here before I did, then everything was going to be on my shoulders. So as long as I'm here, I'm going to do whatever I can to keep it alive."

Jimmie Vaughan and The Tilt-a-Whirl Band

Jimmie Vaughan is far more than just one of the greatest and most respected guitarists in the world of popular music. As Guitar Player magazine notes, "He is a virtual deity - a living legend." After all, Vaughan provides a vital link between contemporary music and its proud heritage, as well as being a longtime avatar of retro cool.

Since releasing his first solo album in 1994, he has set the standard for quality modern roots music. Throughout his career, Vaughan has earned the esteem of his legendary guitar-playing heroes and superstar peers along with successive generations of young players.

Now, with his third solo release, "Do You Get The Blues?" Vaughan has fashioned his most compelling and appealing musical statement yet, creating a rich and variegated masterpiece of 21st Century rhythm and blues.

Vaughan's musical abilities and sense of style were obvious from an early age. Growing up in Oak Cliff, just south of downtown Dallas, TX., he was weaned on classic Top 40 radio, vintage blues, early rock 'n' roll and the deepest rhythm and blues and coolest jazz of the day.

"I never got over that stuff, and I never will. That's the kind of music I like," he explains.

Early in 1990, Jimmie joined up with his brother Stevie, to record "Family Style," an album that reflected their mutually deep musical roots and maturing modern artistic sophistication.

A few weeks prior to the album's release, Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash. The tragedy devastated Vaughan, who retreated from touring and recording, though he continued to play guitar every day. Meanwhile, the success of "Family Style" further enhanced his reputation as a distinctive musical stylist.

Eventually, Vaughan's friend Eric Clapton invited him to open a series of concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall. After the warm reception for his solo debut at the Clapton shows in early 1993, Vaughan started recording his first solo album.

As Vaughan emerged as an artist in his own right, his reputation as a master musician became even more apparent, thanks to the admiration of blues legends like B.B. King and Buddy Guy, such guitar superstars as Eric Clapton and Z.Z. Top's Billy Gibbons, and rising talents like Jonny Lang and Kenny Wayne Shepherd.

Guy once proclaimed: "He's unbeatable when it comes to the blues. He just plays it like it's supposed to be played."

Even Stevie Ray Vaughan acknowledged that when people would compare his playing to that of his brother, there was really no contest. "I play probably 80 percent of what I can play. Jimmie plays one percent of what he knows. He can play anything."