Entertainment Editor Andy Gray

Assorted ramblings from the world of entertainment:

• Never miss a chance to catch a legend.

And legend is a word that certainly applies to Buddy Guy, who will perform Friday at the Robins Theatre.

Guy is without question the greatest living ambassador to the blues, one of the only remaining links to the icons that developed electric guitar blues and shaped the sound of rock music.

He’s won just about every honor a musician can receive — eight Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award; 37 Blues Music Awards; a Billboard Magazine Century Award for distinguished artistic achievement, a Kennedy Center honor and the Presidential National Medal of Arts. Rolling Stone included him on its list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

Those Grammys came for his work in the last 30 years, but last week I picked up a vinyl copy of “I Was Walking Through the Woods,” a 1970 compilation of his early recordings for Chess Records. Guy had a checkered history with Chess, which seldom let Guy unleash the talents that made him a peer of Jimi Hendrix as well as the blues legends with whom he normally is associated. Those early recordings are stellar.

I’ve been lucky enough to see Guy a few times over the years and he never disappoints.

At age 85, he may not be as animated on stage as he once was. But he was 79 years old when he played Packard Music Hall in 2015, and he dazzled that audience, even playing while walking through the crowd.

Opening the 8 p.m. show will be Tom Hambridge, who produced several of Guy’s Grammy-winning albums as well as recordings by Christone Kingfish Ingram, Keb’ Mo’, James Cotton, Susan Tedeschi and Johnny Winter. His songs have been recorded by Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, Rascal Flatts and Joe Bonamassa. His list of collaborators includes Van Morrison, Keith Richards, B.B. King, Greg Allman, Gary Clark Jr. and Jeff Beck.

• Performing at Modern Methods Brewing Company before and after Guy’s show at the Robins will be local blues musician Damian Knapp.

Knapp will be making his fourth trip to Memphis in 2023 to compete in the International Blues Challenge. Knapp won a qualifying event last month in Pittsburgh, picking up a $500 prize and $500 in studio time.

He will compete in the solo / duo category. He previously qualified for the IBC in 2006, 2007 and 2020.

He’ll play from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday at the brewery and do a late set starting around 10 p.m.

• The other show scheduled this weekend at the Robins has been moved to August.

Al Stewart, best known for such songs as “Year of the Cat” and “Time Passages,” was supposed to play Warren on Saturday with the Empty Pockets, but the singer-songwriter was diagnosed with COVID-19 and postponed two weeks’ worth of dates.

The Warren show now is scheduled at 8 p.m. Aug. 21. Tickets purchased for the original date will be honored for the new one.

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com.