Songfacts®:

• Many of Buddy Guy's songs are covers of blues standards, but he wrote this one himself. He came up with the title while he was playing pool before the recording session... poorly. The guy he was playing against was joking around and asked him, "You can't play pool, but can you play the blues?" Buddy's reply: "Damn right I can play the blues!"
  
  He tweaked it a bit and turned it into "Damn Right, I've Got The Blues," writing a doleful lyric about a guy who really needs a win.
• "Damn Right, I've Got the Blues" is a showcase for Buddy Guy's renown guitar skills, which many listeners heard for the first time on this song, the opening number and title track to his most successful album.
  
  He earned his reputation as one of the blues guitar greats at Chess Records in the '60s, where he released his own material and played on tracks by many Chess artists, including Muddy Waters. Buddy hit some bumps in the '80s but got help for the Damn Right, I've Got The Blues album from some of his famous friends who were steeped in blues but crossed over to rock: Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler all contributed. This earned the album some press that brought Guy a much wider audience. It also earned him his first Grammy Award, taking the prize for Best Contemporary Blues Album. His next two albums also won that award.
• Like many American blues legends, Buddy Guy was more appreciated in the UK, and it was the UK-based label Silvertone that gave him a record deal when nobody else would. For his Damn Right, I've Got The Blues album, Silvertone teamed him with producer John Porter, best known for his work with Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music. This seems like a strange fit, but Buddy Guy was all for it. He was happy to be on a British label with a British producer because he knew that's where Jimi Hendrix had to go to get his career moving in the right direction.