My health is
good. My fingers still work. My voice has held out. My fans
haven't left me. They accept what I offer and give back plenty love.
What else can a man want?
One week before Christmas, Silvertone
released Buddy Guy: Live at Legends,
recorded in January 2010 at Buddy's own club in Chicago and produced
by Tom Hambridge. Those of us who were waiting for the
definitive live performance album by Buddy Guy will have to wait a
bit longer.
Buddy has recorded at least five live
albums before, three of them with former sidekick Junior Wells. My
personal favorite is Live at the Checkerboard Lounge, Chicago
1979, but that's just another
way of saying that I prefer the Buddy Guy on that recording to the
Buddy of today. His most recent live effort, Live: The
Real Deal (1996), has its good
points, but I found the backup by the Saturday Night Live Band to be
awkward at times. However, I recommend it over this CD.
Recording a live
Buddy Guy performance can be a challenge. Much of the performance is
visual. He jumps abruptly from song to song, seldom completing any
of them. He varies the dynamics. (When he gets down to a whisper,
reach for your ear plugs.) He demonstrates the guitar styles of
earlier blues artists and rock musicians he has influenced. He does
his usual walk through the audience. All of this can seem spontaneous until you see him again and realize that it isn't.
The live section of
this CD is only 40 minutes long, suggesting that it was edited down
from a longer performance. He has tamed down his usual routine; for
example, he completes most of the songs, and his commentaries are
fairly brief. He gets off to a rousing start with “Best Damn
Fool.”
With the exception
of two medleys, these are all songs he's recorded before, in some
cases quite recently. His guitar work is more flashy than on the
studio versions, but not necessarily better. In a disappointing
departure from his usual live program, there are no acoustic songs in
this set. However, he does slow the pace down long enough to give us
a heavy dose of racial tolerance (“Skin Deep”). His finale turns
out to be the medleys, which as usual had me grinding my teeth.
Buddy's self-esteem seems heavily invested in the claim that he is
the missing link between the blues giants and the rock stars of the
'60s and '70s. In fact, he doesn't need to bask in the reflected
glory of Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton. The performance ends abruptly
without much applause and with no encore.
Because
the live performance is so short, the CD is filled out with three
studio cuts recorded in March 2010, probably remainders from the
sessions that produced his most recent album, Living Proof.
Two of them are slow blues, an original, “Polka Dot Love,” and a
soulful version of Muddy Waters' “Country Boy,” which I think is
the highlight of the CD. (A bit of history: At age 27, Buddy Guy
played backup guitar on the Muddy Waters LP Folk Singer,
which contains this song.) The third studio
cut is an up tempo rocker featuring the Memphis Horns.
At the age of 73
(when this CD was recorded), Buddy Guy is still one of our greatest
guitarists and is highly underrated as a singer—if he would only
just stand there, play and sing at the level of which he is capable.
If you don't have many Buddy Guy CDs, this one may turn out to be a
revelation for you. But if you have most of them already, this one
may sit on the shelf longer than the others.
Live Tracks:
Best Damn Fool; Mannish Boy; I
Just Want to Make Love to You; Skin Deep; Damn Right I Got the Blues;
Boom Boom/Strange Brew; Voodoo Chile/Sunshine of Your Love.
Studio Tracks:
Polka Dot Love; Coming For You; Country Boy. (55 min.)
Personnel
(Live): Buddy Guy, vocals,
lead guitar; Rick Hall, guitar; Marty Sammon, keyboards; Orlando
Wright, bass; Tim Austin, drums; Tom Hambridge, background vocal on
“Skin Deep.”
Personnel
(Studio): Buddy Guy, vocals,
lead guitar; David Grissom, guitar; Reese Wynans, keyboards; Marty
Sammon, keyboards (2 tracks); Michael Rhodes, bass (2 tracks); Tommy
Macdonald, bass (1 track); Tom Hambridge, drums; Memphis Horns—Wayne
Jackson, trumpet; Jack Hale, trombone; Tom McGinley, tenor saxophone
(1 track).
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