12/29/2025
HEY LOCO FANS – Texas blues guitarist Buddy Whittington was born December 28, 1956, in Fort Worth, Texas. He began playing the guitar inspired by his sister's records of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton.
At the age of 14 he was already a part of the Dallas/Fort Worth music scene and playing regularly in the clubs along Jacksboro Highway. While attending L.D. Bell High School, Whittington played in a band called Short Change, which opened for Point Blank, a band that he would later join, replacing guitar player Kim Davis. During the early 1980s, he formed and sang with his own band, The Sidemen.
Whittington explains that "the band I was in at the time, 'The Sidemen', had a good friend in Mr. Jerry Thompson, who these days is President of Promoterline Inc., but back then was managing the Dallas Alley complex, where he would book us as the opening act on any number of outdoor events and shows, and we were booked as the opener for a Bluesbreakers' show.... Mr. Mayall asked me for my contact info, we stayed loosely in touch for the next two years, and when then-Bluesbreakers guitarist Coco Montoya decided it was time to hit the highway on his own, I 'received the call' and appeared on countless Mayall shows and recordings worldwide for the 15 years between 1993 and 2008, at which time the existing Bluesbreakers were 'kicked out of the nest' and the band was reformed by Mayall."
In 2008, Whittington released his first solo album and he continues to tour regularly in the UK and throughout Europe, though Roger Cotton has left the band, which now works as a th*****me featuring Darby Todd on drums. In August 2013, Whittington sat in with his old boss John Mayall at the Bedford Blues Festival in Bedford, Texas. Whittington lives in Hurst, Texas with his family.
You can find his latest info posted on his page: https://www.facebook.com/BuddyWhittingtonBand