A few words about this blues giant in addition to the little bio featured below. First, let's say once and for all that Buddy Guy is not only a unique guitarist, he's also one of the greatest blues singers, and one shouldn't dissociate one from the other, that's what made him a legend.
Actually, Buddy Guy invented the… Buddy Guy style ! Electric or acoustic, urban or rural, his music is one from a man who really lives the blues on and off stage or studio, day and night, “from his hair down to his shoes” as he sings on “Damn Right, I've Got the Blues” on his eponymous 1991 album which became the symbol of the “Chicago blues” revival.
This time, for the first time, Guy is the boss, free to lead his backing band how he wants. From the first track, the soulful slow “A Man And The Blues”, where he displays a mellow B.B. King-like sound to the final “Jam On A Monday Morning” (final on the original 1968 release), we hear Guy evolving with growing intensity towards his own powerful dynamic style both on guitar and vocals.
Equally soulful on slow numbers ("A Man and the Blues", his covers of Texas born Californian R'n'B pianist Mercy Dee Walton's "One Room Country Shack", B.B. King's "Sweet Little Angel", and “Worry, Worry”), as on faster tempos like “I Can't Quit the Blues”, “Money (That's What I Want)”, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” played with an Earl Hooker-tinged sound, “Just Playing My Axe”, a title with a very British pop intro but soon turning into a pure Buddy Guy guitar demonstration, “Jam on a Monday Morning” where he incorporates jazzy bits in his playing.
For this re-issue as a triple-treat box, Vanguard added two rhythmic tracks recorded during the same sessions but never released yet : “Poison Ivy” and “You Got A Hole In Your Soul”.
■ “This Is Buddy Guy!” Vanguard had perfectly realized that Buddy Guy was a born showman whose playing and singing was never better than on stage, and they decided to put out a live as his second album for the label. Produced by Sam Charters as the first one, “This Is Buddy Guy!” was recorded at the New Orleans House in the university city of Berkeley, California.
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| Sam Charters (right) with Muddy Waters |
“The fantastic in-person performance recorded live!” writes the cover under the title, and fantastic it must have been for the people (a majority of students) who attended the concert.
You have to hear him work out the audience on his outstanding feverish version of... “Fever” ! His chopped guitar licks are much sharper than in studio, his powerful voice goes up to screaming heights.
The 5-piece horn section gives the whole show a R'n'B color. Fast and slow titles alternate and Guy delivers great version of his song “I Got My Eyes On You” co-written with Willie Dixon, of the classic “The Things I Used To Do”, of the slow “I Had A Dream Last Night” and “You Were Wrong” where he puts out heartfelt solos. On a title like “Knock On Wood” Guy has a definite James Brown high-energy sound. The long “I'm Not The Best” is closing the show in an explosion of energy.
Again Vanguard has bonused three unreleased tracks : “Watermelon Man” (a Herbie Hancock number), “Slow Blues” and “Crazy 'Bout You”. Buddy Guy in R'n'B mode halfway between James Brown and Otis Redding but with his exciting guitar style on top.
Less flamboyant than the other two, more devoted to strict blues and favoring slow numbers, this album might reveal a bit frustrating for those who expected the same raw energy as on the previous opuses. We discover a Buddy Guy globally calmer, concentrating on his guitar rather than on his showmanship,. But after all, it's a studio album.
Forget the R'n'B coating and welcome to some soulful blues like "Hold That Plane", "I'm Ready", "Come See About Me", "Hello San Francisco". And “My Time After Awhile” which became a life-long staple of Guy's live repertoire. Two tracks are a bit more lively, the studio version of “Watermelon Man”, and "You Don't Love Me".
Actually, it's the kind of album that sounds better at each new listening.
This compilation indeed gathers some of Guy's best pieces recorded on Silvertone between 1990 and 1998, a period during which Guy entered an era of sophisticated sonic technologies that he didn't hesitate to use for the best : his guitar produces a fabulous sound.
Explosive opening with the now iconic “Damn Right, I've Got The Blues” from his eponymous 1991 album which also provided the following three tracks : “Five Long Years”, an amazing example of Guy's vocal performance, the stirring rhythmic R'n'B “Mustang Sally”, and the superb instrumental tribute to SRV “Rememberin' Stevie”.
From Guy's next album, “Feels Like Rain”, Silvertone selected the appealing rocking “She's A Superstar”, a lesson of wah-wah guitar by Guy, the title song “Feels Like Rain”, a sorrowful mellow ballad with a seducing chorus, and “She's Nineteen Years Old”, a straight Chicago blues signed Muddy Waters.
The classic mi-tempo blues “I Smell Trouble” and the muscular “Someone Else Is Steppin' In” come from “Slippin' In”, the impressive live performance of “My Time After Awhile”, from his “Live! The Real Deal” from 1996, gives a good idea of Guy's energy on stage, and it's too bad Silvertone didn't include a next live track.
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| With Johnny Lang |
The intense R'n'B “Midnight Train”, from the album “Heavy Love”, features Guy's one time protégé Johnny Lang, while the last three tracks are interesting unreleased outtakes : the six-and-a-half-minute soulful “Miss Ida B”, the romantic slow “I Need Your Love So Bad”, and “Innocent Man”, a medley inspired by Muddy Waters' “Hoochie Coochie Man” and “Mannish Boy”.
Buddy's baddest is much better than loads of blues records released during the last decade of the millennium… A perfect way to discover a legend for those who never listened to him seriously. ■
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| Eric Clapton with Buddy Guy |
His first decade in Chicago was not an easy path. In 1959 he signed with Chess but the label wouldn't let him record an album of his own, preferring to use him as a session and sideman for its musicians. But his guitar work on some recordings of famous Chess artists like Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller), Koko Taylor or Muddy Waters, had a huge influence on young musicians on both sides of the ocean, in UK (John Mayall, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Brian Jones and Keith Richards) and in the US (Butterfield Blues Band, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan).
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| Buddy Guy & Junior Wells |
In 1967, a frustrated Guy followed Wells' steps and turned to Vanguard. The label gave him the freedom to do his own music and didn't bridle his incendiary style.
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| Legend's, Buddy Guy's blues club in Chicago |
Shortly before he died, in 1983, Muddy Waters had given him the mission to keep the blues alive. So in 1989 Buddy Guy opened the blues cub Buddy Guy's Legends that features top blues artists five nights a week. So far the nights of January are traditionally reserved for Buddy Guy himself. Prior to that he had already opened the Checkerboard Lounge with a business partner in 1972, but called off the partnership in 1985 and finally opened Legends.
The 1980s were low decade for blues musicians, challenged by other forms of music (hip-hop and rap, new wave, electro...) and Guy, without any label, recorded only a few albums with his brother Phil or with Wells.
1991 suddenly rang the bell of a new blues revival for Guy's career and that of most of his fellow blues artists. It was the year the exceptional album “Damn Right, I've Got the Blues” was released after he signed with Silvertone Records.
From then on Guy cruised high through the most successful decades of his career with over a dozen top albums, all on Silvertone, and numerous international tours. In 2018, he released his answer to Muddy Waters : “The Blues Is Alive and Well”.
His latest album, “The Blues Don't Lie”, produced by Tom Hambridge and featuring numerous guests, came out in September 2022 and you can hear it here.
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| With Clapton at the Supershow |
1 comment:
A very significant stage that of Vanguard, the three albums deserved to be in this compilation (hopefully one day something will be found in the vaults that was left untouched) where we find the artist post Chess.
And speaking of compilations, Buddy already has many pearls created in this record company like the ones you mention and of which I add Sweet Tea to my liking, greetings Onurbix and good week.
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