After an amazing string of eight studio and a single live album recorded and released during the brief space of nine years, by 1981 Buchanan was burned out. The vagaries of the recording industry, and his labels’ attempts to conform his talents to a saleable commodity had left him disgruntled and disillusioned. The guitarist would virtually disappear for a spell, taking a four-year hiatus to re-think and re-charge his batteries. Lucky for us, Alligator Records’ Bruce Iglauer convinced Buchanan to return from his self-imposed exile, giving the guitarist artistic control in the studio that would result in some of the best recordings of Buchanan’s career.
Roy Buchanan’s Live At Rockpalast
Live At Rockpalast is taken from a February 1985 performance by
the guitarist and his band for the popular German TV show Rockpalast,
and would mark Buchanan’s return to music…and what a return it would prove to
be! Buchanan’s performance here, prior to the recording of his Alligator debut
When A Guitar Plays the Blues, shows an artist and musician back in
fighting form and shaking off the ring rust. Leading a band that included
(seldom used) singer Martin Stephenson, keyboardist John Steel, and bassist
Anthony Dumm – all members of U.K. pop/rock band the Daintees – as well as
drummer Martin Yula, Buchanan cranks through a baker’s dozen of original
blues-flavored roots-rockers and favorite covers, much to the delight of the
enthusiastic German audience.
The set kicks off with the spry
“Thing In G (Short Fuse),” a funky instrumental romp that sounds not unlike
some of the material Stevie Ray Vaughan would be vamping on a couple of short
years later. While the band provides a supple rhythm, Buchanan embroiders the
song with his red-hot fretwork, the guitarist firing on all cylinders as he
throws in sly blues, jazz, and rockabilly references throughout the
four-minute firecracker. Buchanan’s subsequent take on Booker T & the
M.G.s’ classic “Green Onion” is unlike any you’ve ever heard…while the band
offers up a standard take on the song’s keyboard riffing and swaggering
drumbeats, the guitarist stomps all over tradition with his wild-ass
flamethrower solos, which bounce off the arrangement like a madman careening
off the walls of his rubber room. It makes for an energetic and unpredictable
performance, and a heck of a lot of fun.
Blues In D
Buchanan was well-known and revered for his ability to fuse blues, rock,
and country music into an earthy, organic sound, and nowhere did he ever do it
better than with “Roy’s Blues (Roy’s Bluz).” An intricate instrumental
backdrop frames the almost whispered, briefly spoken lyrics as Buchanan’s
fretwork ranges from low-key blues and roots-rock to jagged shards of angular
jazz licks and twangy, barbed-wire country tones. It’s not blues as we know
it, but it’s breathtaking nevertheless, the song stretched out to ten minutes
by Buchanan and band so that by the time he hits the crescendo almost six
minutes in, when the raucous vocals fly out of nowhere, you’re left exhausted.
By contrast, Buchanan’s instrumental “Blues In D” is a more
traditional blues shuffle, with the guitarist showing his mojo hand through a
number of passages throughout the song. Above a standard Chicago blues
bass/drums rhythm, Buchanan tacks on an incendiary display of six-string
pyrotechnics, emotion pouring from his fingertips in a performance that is
pure instinct and adrenalin. He takes much the same tack with songwriter Don
Gibson’s “Sweet Dreams,” Buchanan’s mournful, tear-jerking solos echoing the
song’s heartbreak lyrics, adding a bit of blues hue to this instrumental take
on a beloved country classic.
Foxy Lady
Like just about every other guitarist that came of
age during the 1960s, Buchanan was touched by the incredible sounds that
issued from the instrument of the late Jimi Hendrix. Buchanan’s take on
Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” – the song a garage-rock standard first hit big by the
Leaves in 1965 and later adapted by Hendrix as the Experience’s first single –
skews more towards Hendrix’s vision in this performance. Although Stevenson’s
vocals are unremarkable, it’s Buchanan’s mangling of his instrument that draws
your attention, his solos incorporating scraps of blues, rock, and some
otherworldly sounds that even Jimi couldn’t reach. The following version of
Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” soars even further into the stratosphere, the vocals
overshadowed and hidden beneath Buchanan’s unbelievable, high-flying guitar
and the muscular rhythmic soundtrack provided by Dumm and Yula.
Buchanan’s
“Messiah (Messiah Will Come Again)” is provided a truly ethereal performance
here, the song’s unlikely fusion of blues and rock with classical music
overtones unique to Buchanan’s particular experience and perspective. His
haunting guitarplay here is elegantly beautiful and tragically dark, the
guitarist wringing every bit of energy and emotion from his fretboard. The
mood is heightened greatly, however, by the upbeat “Night Train,” a
rockabilly-tinged instrumental with a ramshackle framework that rocks and
rolls like the wheels on a freight train. Buchanan closes
Live At Rockpalast with “Wayfaring Pilgrim,” another haunting
instrumental that showcases his immense abilities, great tone, and masterful
blending of musical styles.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
The 1985 release of the acclaimed
When A Guitar Plays the Blues represented the beginning of a fertile
period of Roy Buchanan’s career, the guitarist quickly recording 1986’s
Dancing On the Edge and the following year’s Hot Wires before his tragic death
in 1988. Returning to the trenches after a four-year break, Buchanan sounds
recharged, revved-up, and ready-to-roll on Live At Rockpalast. There
are few live documents of this unique and influential guitarist available, and
this one is well worth your hard-earned coin. (MIG Music, released March 6,
2012)
Buy the CD from Amazon.com:
Roy Buchanan’s Live At Rockpalast
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