29 May 01 - 09:44 AM (#472240) Subject: Gimme yer best Buddy Guy From: GUEST The local college station had been playing cuts from Buddy's latest, "Sweet Tea," a couple of months before it had been released. Specifically, the second cut on the disc, Baby Please Don't Leave Me, caught the most airplay. It sounded like Buddy had ingested a bunch of 'shrooms and stepped back forty years in time to influence such psychedelic bands as Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company. A seven minute plus jam, bathed in reverb and backed by a simple rhythm line, it resembles more of a wail than yer typical blues vibe. This time out, Buddy abandoned the slick sounding horn arrangements that diluted the emotive feel of previous recordings. He stripped the sound down to the basics - guitar(s), bass, and drums - cranked up the amps to '11' and proceeded to rip it up. Only the first cut, Done Got Old, is accoustic. If it weren't for the intimate way Buddy intones the lyrics to this song, you'd think he was pulling your leg. The rest of the tracks on the CD testify to the fact that at 65, Buddy can play as intensely as anyone laying down blues licks today. To the album's detriment, there doesn't seem to be much originality in the songs. It sounds like Buddy has tuned in to the relatively recent wave of artists like R.L. Burnside and the late Junior Kimbrough that have defined (redefined?rediscovered?), for lack of a better term, the 'North Mississippi' sound. Perhaps "Sweet Tea" is Buddy's 'take' on these guys. Then again, blues is not so much about originality as it is about conveying a feeling or eliciting an emotional response. On both counts, Buddy Guy has struck a mighty powerful chord with "Sweet Tea." Whaddya think?
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29 May 01 - 01:48 PM (#472427) Subject: RE: Gimme yer best Buddy Guy From: GUEST Haven't heard it. I've never been a huge Buddy Guy fan; he always sounded like "more sizzle than steak," as the saying goes. But I haven't heard that much, and my impressions maybe off base. Anyone else got anything to say about Mr. Guy? |
29 May 01 - 01:55 PM (#472434) Subject: RE: Gimme yer best Buddy Guy From: Mrrzy And here I thought it was a nickname for Buddy Holly... *sigh* |
29 May 01 - 02:26 PM (#472450) Subject: RE: Gimme yer best Buddy Guy From: GUEST,Whistle Stop That was me in the second posting above -- guess I've got to re-set something. |
29 May 01 - 03:51 PM (#472493) Subject: RE: Gimme yer best Buddy Guy From: fat B****rd It may have been boyish enthusiasm but the first time my teenage friends and myself heard Buddy was on a compilation (Pye label, I think) the track was "The first time I met the blues". We thought he must have recorded the Guitar part stood behind sandbags on an insulated floor or whatever. Just like many first hearings, Robert Johnson, Elmore James et al, it's not the same now I'm "grown up" shame, shame shame. |
29 May 01 - 11:08 PM (#472779) Subject: RE: Gimme yer best Buddy Guy From: Peter Kasin You might want to listen to him in another context, as guitarist for Junior Wells' Chicago Blues Band, on an album produced by Samuel Charters in the 1960s called "It's My Life, Baby!" Half the album was recorded live at a Southside blues club. I haven't heard Buddy Guy's later albums, but this one's a gem, as is Wells's harmonica playing and vocals. -chanteyranger |
30 May 01 - 01:14 AM (#472826) Subject: RE: Gimme yer best Buddy Guy From: Stevangelist Buddy has always been one of the "outsiders" when it comes to the purist's view of Chicago (or urban or whatever) blues. He is a talented guitarist; I wonder, however, how much of his show really is a put-on act for the suburban white kids. After all, this is the guy who gives a sh*t that Hendrix (yawn) stole his wild guitar style and hyper stage attitude. Maybe Guy's just a little too well-packaged for some blues fans. Good player, anyway. His work with Junior Wells is superb, as he mostly stays the heck out of the way of the only man original enough on the amplified harp to get copied as much as Little Walter Jacobs. May The Road Rise To Meet You, Stevangelist
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30 May 01 - 03:28 AM (#472862) Subject: RE: Gimme yer best Buddy Guy From: dr soul A long time ago, a buddy living in Vancouver BC invited me to see a set of blues movies. Among the gems was a very young Buddy Guy appearing on early '60's television, first with his Chicago band (heavy on the horns), and then playing an acoustic guitar duet with somebody like Son House. Since I was already acquainted with his Junior Wells work, it made me appreciate Mr. Guy's range of styles all the more. His backing of both Junior Wells and Son House was (and is) the epitome of tasteful blues accompaniment, while his Chicago band of 1962 was VERY horn-oriented, with his screaming vocals on top of it. His modern work has emphasized flash over substance, but he's got great chops at the foundation. I think Buddy Guy had the misfortune of coming along in the second generation of Chicago blues players (along with Magic Sam and Otis Rush). These guys were just after the golden age of Chicago blues, so didn't get the appreciation of us "classic blues" fans, and were just before the rock revolution and British invasion blotted out the sun of Chicago's blues players. It's really a testament that he's still playing. Some other good Buddy Guy records include backing Junior Wells on one of the best blues album ever made - "HooDoo Man Blues" (Delmark) - and "Buddy Guy and Junior Wells Play the Blues" (Atlantic, 1972), where the back up band includes Eric Clapton Dr. John, and the J. Geils band. |
30 May 01 - 07:49 AM (#472912) Subject: RE: Gimme yer best Buddy Guy From: GUEST Many, many thanks for the input. Buddy Guy's work had always been in the periphery of my (limited) knowledge of blues guitarists, having on occasion only caught a snatch of a song here and there while cruising the radio dial in the off hours. As stated earlier, the horns and big band accoutrements were always sort of a turn-off. Collectively, your responses are an inspiration to delve a little deeper into the body of Guy's work. And that's what it's all about. In the meantime, "Sweet Tea" stays in the CD player. It'll be a long time before I get tired of this one. Other thoughts/impressions/comments/criticisms/reviews/whatever are of course, still welcome. |
30 Jun 03 - 04:37 AM (#974495) Subject: Review: Buddy Guy in Billboard From: Brian Hoskin Buddy Guy Explores New 'Blues' Territory Sat June 28, 2003 08:03 AM ET By Wes Orshoski NEW YORK (Billboard) - A few years back, producer Dennis Herring was struck by a nagging question about blues legend Buddy Guy. Why, record after record, was Guy chasing crossover success? He seemed to be toiling away, trying to push a brand of blues- rock fusion on folks who just weren't buying it. What he ought to be doing, Herring reasoned, is making traditional blues albums that more accurately reflect not only his stature in the blues pantheon -- as one of its few living icons -- but also the full range of his abilities within the genre. A fairly relentless drive to put this right seems to have sparked yet another revival in the blues great's long career. REVIVAL REDUX After a roughly 15-year lapse in studio recordings, Guy re- emerged in the early '90s with a string of albums on the Silvertone label. While each, especially the Grammy Award-decorated 1991 effort "Damn Right, I've Got the Blues," helped bolster his reputation and rekindle his career, Guy's two most recent sets for the label, both produced by Herring, demand more attention and respect. In 2001, Guy and Herring delivered "Sweet Tea," which found the now-66-year-old artist giving his slick, signature Chicago blues style a momentary rest. Instead, he embraced the hypnotic and raunchy North Mississippi hill country blues sound mastered by the likes of such revered but little-known bluesmen -- and Fat Possum artists -- as R.L. Burnside and the late Junior Kimbrough. Critics instantly hailed the set as a triumph -- one that revealed a side of Guy most thought they'd never see and unveiled talents that many didn't realize Guy possessed. It was like hearing an old dog master new tricks. On June 3, Silvertone issued Herring and Guy's second collaboration, "Blues Singer," an all-acoustic set that is the first Guy album hell-bent on emphasizing his underappreciated singing skills over his guitar heroics. Throughout the album, Guy uncharacteristically plays without a guitar pick. By plucking the strings of a '50s Harmony archtop guitar with his thumb and fingers, he adds a tone and intimacy we've rarely heard from him. It's a playing style -- strictly enforced by Herring during the album's recording -- that helps make "Blues Singer" a striking listen. Together, "Sweet Tea" and "Blues Singer" inform the listener that if you think you had Buddy Guy figured out, you simply don't know the half of it. And "Blues Singer," which features appearances by Eric Clapton and B.B. King, could not have arrived at a better time. Congress declared 2003 as the Year of the Blues. A Martin Scorsese blues miniseries and a related Antoine Fuqua film celebrating the genre are both expected to feature the artist prominently when they're released later this year. Thus, Guy looks certain to garner more respect and many new ears this year. 'CROSSOVER RUT' Herring, who has worked with Counting Crows and Camper Van Beethoven, started lobbying Silvertone and Guy's management a few years ago on the "Sweet Tea" concept, feeling it could lift the artist out of the "crossover rut" in which he felt Guy was entrenched. Initially, the bluesman was hesitant. He was -- and remains -- interested in having hits. And this project was not mainstream-friendly in the slightest. What's more, he was not familiar with the North Mississippi scene. Yet, after some persuasion, Guy was sold on the project. Making the album and recording the Louisiana native at the producer's Oxford, Miss.-based Sweet Tea studios, Herring says, was a chance to "take the Chicago guy and pull him back down in the mud, where he came from." And with "Blues Singer," Guy gets even muddier. The album is more devoted to the early Delta blues sound and style than anything Guy has ever cut, including the acoustic sets he recorded with blues harpist Junior Wells. And that is very much by Herring's design. "I wanted the record to be real primary, even making Muddy Waters seem kind of like the modern side of the blues," he says. Yet he was careful to ensure that the album retained the trancey, rural North Mississippi sound that Guy mastered on "Sweet Tea." And that's appropriate, considering that it was during the "Sweet Tea" mixing sessions that "Blues Singer" was born. While listening to that album's lone acoustic track, the set- opening "Done Got Old" -- one of four Kimbrough covers on "Sweet Tea" -- then-Zomba chief Clive Calder remarked to Herring, "It would be great to make a whole album like this with Buddy." Herring took the project from there. As was the case with "Sweet Tea," he chose a number of the songs Guy covered, including the John Lee Hooker tracks "Crawlin' Kingsnake," "Black Cat Blues" and "Sally Mae." The disc is notable for the intimacy felt throughout its 12 tracks. Part of that comes from the fact that half of the record is simply Guy, his voice and his acoustic guitar. But it is also partially born out of the fact that the takes were cut in the Sweet Tea control room. There, Guy played alone or with his bandmates, including Squirrel Nut Zippers guitarist Jimbo Mathus -- who also played on "Sweet Tea." But nothing proved more integral to the album's low-key feel than the absence of the guitar pick. Herring says, "It forced him to be a little more purely melodic, or economical; a little more self-editing. When he would pick up a pick and start playing, he would fall into some of these automatic things that I heard him do before. And I liked the idea of this record having this completely different feel to it." Guy says, "My fingers were so sore on that album, man, I was almost crying; and every time I'd pick up a pick, he'd be in the engineer's room, and he'd say, 'Nah, nah, nah, you got the pick.' " The album "snatched me back a bit," Guy adds, reminding him of just how few of his heroes and peers -- like Fred McDowell, Son House and Waters -- are left. He cracks, "Once, I went to sleep and woke up and I was the young guy. Then, all of a sudden, I went to sleep and woke up and I was the senior citizen!" MORE MARKETING OPTIONS Because it is an acoustic disc with such intimacy, "Blues Singer" has given Silvertone more radio and marketing options than perhaps any of Guy's albums for the label. In addition to noncommercial and adult alternative radio, the disc is also being serviced to heritage and Americana stations that play more acoustic-oriented folk music, Silvertone marketing exec Kim Kaiman says. "It reaches a little further than previous Buddy records." Considering the recent successes of "Buena Vista Social Club," Norah Jones and the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack, Guy's move to an acoustic record likely leaves him with more potential for radio and TV success than he's had in recent years. And the album surely looks to get a boost from the upcoming Year of the Blues-themed Scorsese and Fuqua projects. The latter captures the all-star Salute to the Blues concert held in February at New York's Radio City Music Hall. Guy dominated the show, performing four songs -- more than any other artist that night. "It's an important year for Buddy, it's an important year for us as a record company and it's an important year for the genre," Kaiman says. "The more people that hear and see him will understand that he is a national treasure." What Congress, Scorsese and Fuqua are doing this year -- celebrating the blues -- is something Guy has dedicated his life to. Although he admits that he has a hunger for a hit, he's just as quick to admit that -- after those long years outside of the studio -- he jumps at the chance to record, regardless of a project's commercial potential. Whether electric Chicago blues, the North Mississippi trance of "Sweet Tea" or the acoustic Delta material on "Blues Singer," he is furthering the music he loves. That is perhaps more important to him than a hit record. He says, "Anything to help the blues -- if it's beating a tub, man -- just call me: I'm ready." Reuters/Billboard |
02 Jul 16 - 08:49 PM (#3798814) Subject: RE: Gimme yer best Buddy Guy From: GUEST,keberoxu It is a shock to realize how old Buddy Guy is now. For so long he was the youngest kid on the block. I heard him play, when Clifford Antone was still alive, in Austin. Antone had cultivated a public who would actually hold still and pay attention to blues music. And this audience knew Buddy Guy well. He came alone, and used Antone's house band. And Guy felt so at home that he didn't do any flashy stuff. He just played guitar, sang, and testified. I felt blessed to witness it, and he was just genuinely happy to be there that night. I wonder how much of that audience has dissipated now that Antone is dead. |
03 Jul 16 - 06:26 AM (#3798841) Subject: RE: Gimme yer best Buddy Guy From: GUEST,Hootenanny Why should you be shocked? we are all getting older by the minute. I am just pleased to know that Buddy is still able to cut the mustard and live and enjoy a comfortable life. It pleases me more as I am one of the team that brought Buddy to Europe for his first tour in February 1965, He was hardly -if at all- known at the time this side of the Atlantic and was recommended to us by Willie Dixon. Within months he was back in Europe on the Folk Blues Festival tour and It was about a year later that he was back as part of a jazz festival in the section featuring various guitarists playing differing styles. The British "rockers" got to hear him and as they say "the rest is history". I still have the recording of him playing my acoustic guitar at our flat in '65 and photographs of him in our kitchen when he was really cooking - gumbo that is - he is as good a cook as he is an entertainer. Good luck Buddy and Many Happy Returns for July 30th. Hoot |