[Slowhand] Divorce has Buddy Guy singing 'Cheaper to Keep 'Er'

[Scott Wallenberg]

> Divorce has Buddy Guy singing 'Cheaper to Keep 'Er'


> October 24, 2004
> BY ABDON M. PALLASCH... Legal Affairs Reporter
>
> Blues legend Buddy Guy had just agreed to give his wife a
> multimillion-dollar
> settlement and considerable maintenance to settle their divorce case.
> Then, Jennifer Guy's divorce lawyer, Enrico Mirabelli, asked Guy if he was
> going to write a redux of his signature hit, "Damn Right I Got the Blues"
> called "Damn Right I Got the 'Divorce' Blues."
> No, Guy said, but he did have another new song. He said he was calling it
> "Cheaper to Keep 'Er," and he sang a few bars while strumming an air
> guitar for
> the assembled bailiffs, lawyers and his not-very-amused, newly ex-wife.
> The terms of the settlement are confidential.
> "It's settled, and I think that's best for everybody to just move
> forward,"
> said Buddy Guy's attorney, David Levy of Kalcheim Schatz & Berger.
>
> A Rolls, a Ferrari and a Lexus
>
> Both sides spent five days arguing about who gets which of the couple's
> five
> homes, including an 11,000-square-foot home that sits on 10 to 14 acres in
> Orland Park, and their cars -- a Rolls-Royce, a Ferrari and a Lexus.
> There also were arguments about whether to consider the years from 1975 to
> 1991 -- when the Guys were together but not yet married -- or just the
> period
> since they married in 1991.
> Buddy Guy filed for divorce in 2002.
> Though they agreed not to disclose specifics of the settlement, Mirabelli
> of
> Nadler, Pritikin & Mirabelli did allow: "Mrs. Guy is not singing the
> blues."
>
> $5 million digs
>
> Guy, 68, whose Blues bar Legends at 754 S. Wabash was host to Koko
> Taylor's
> birthday party last weekend, won his fifth Grammy Award this year for the
> acoustic album "Blues Singer." Other Grammys were for "Damn Right I've Got
> the
> Blues" and "Feels Like Rain."
> Guy was born in Louisiana in a house that did not have running water until
> his teen years. He moved to Chicago and taught himself to play, watching
> Muddy
> Waters and blues legends by night as he drove a tow truck during the day.
> A profile on Guy's Orland Park home that ran in Ebony in 2000 estimated
> its
> worth at $5 million and said it had 20 rooms -- a long way from his
> Lettsworth, La., roots.
> "I walked in and it was home," Jennifer Guy was quoted as saying.
> "She picks them, I just pay for them," Buddy Guy responded, laughing.