52 Guitars: Week 26
06/28/2014
Roy Buchanan
That's the great and tragic Roy Buchanan, once introduced as "the world's greatest unknown guitarist." He never did become very widely known, but he was certainly admired, respected, and influential. I reviewed the double-CD collection Sweet Dreams here a few years ago...well, over seven years ago...and for further information, and an opinion which hasn't changed, I'll refer you to the two separate entries for disc 1 and disc 2.
And for this post, I don't think any assortment of individual YouTube clips would serve any better than this Austin City Limits appearance from 1976. It's thirty minutes long, but you'll know after four or five if you want to hear/see the rest.
I bet those two guys sitting right in front of him are guitar players, or trying to be. I still sort of wish he had played something other than a Telecaster, which has a brighter and thinner tone than some other guitars, or at least it usually sounds that way--it's traditionally associated with country music. But that was the tone he wanted, obviously.
For more information about his life and career, see the Wikipedia entry.
Buchanan's amazing. One of my college roommates had a live album of his that we listened to all the time.
Posted by: Rob G | 06/29/2014 at 12:32 PM
There's some excellent live stuff on that 2cd set I mentioned. I think there's also some really good stuff that I haven't heard on the albums he released on Alligator (Sweet Dreams is from the Polydor and Atlantic albums).
Posted by: Mac | 06/29/2014 at 01:36 PM
Kind of reminds me of Mike Bloomfield, with the phrasing between singing. It's amazing he could stand there so relaxed and not even tap his foot or something.
Great sound.
Posted by: Robert Hanson | 07/14/2014 at 07:15 PM