Bootleg Review: Roy Buchanan’s Telecaster Country (1999)

SOURCE: Radio broadcast on WLIR-FM, live from My Father’s Place in Roslyn, New York; August 17, 1973.

SOUND QUALITY: Good FM broadcast (6-7) with some hollow, cavern feel to it. When Buchanan hits the high notes on his Fender Telecaster, though, they ring clear as a bell.

COVER: Four-color, four-panel insert with picture of a young Buchanan on front cover playing his beloved axe, a sepia-toned pic of Roy in the studio with guitar in hand on rear of insert. Inside offers excerpt of Guitar Player mag interview with the artist while back cover shows a much older Buchanan and offers tracklist and venue information.

TRACKLIST: I Can Fly Now/ C.C. Rider (listed here as “See See Rider”)/ Susie Q/ Hey Joe/ Blinda Lou/ Johnny B. Goode/ Bad Case Of The Blues/ Green Onions/ Pete’s Blues/ You Don’t Own Me       

COMMENTS: Since editor Bill tossed this musical hand grenade in my lap, I handled the crisis as best as I could. You see, in my ignorance, I knew little about Roy Buchanan other than his name and the occurrence of his tragic death. I was uninitiated in the wonderful legacy that this Telecaster maestro left behind in his wake and therefore had to dig up every scrap of info that I could on the artist. Thanks to Big Joe at Rossi’s Record Room in Brentwood TN, I acquired copies of Buchanan’s first two albums; later a copy of Sweet Dreams: The Anthology, a two-CD retrospective of Buchanan’s work fell into my lap. I was ready to tackle “Darth” Glahn’s review assignment with the proper tools to do the job.

Buchanan’s story, for those of you as blind as I once was, is classic blues material all the way. Born in Arkansas, raised in the California desert, Buchanan grew up in the Pentecostal Church of God, his father a fire and brimstone preacher. He often attended revivals with members of the area’s black church and, falling in love with gospel music, the blues and African-American guitarists like Blind Boy Fuller, Buchanan taught himself to play. He left home at fifteen, made his first recordings at the tender age of twenty, and played with folks like Ronnie Hawkins, Dale Hawkins and Freddie Cannon. He really wasn’t discovered until he was almost 32 years old, when a 1971 Rolling Stone article sang his praises. A checkered career followed, with a slew of major label recordings, a handful of indie sides and lots of live performances earning Buchanan lots of critical praise but little in the way of filthy lucre. He tragically took his own life in 1998 after a minor arrest for public drunkenness.

Said story is a way of explaining that Buchanan may well be one of the first true “cult” artists, a six-string wizard without peer who numbered among his admirers folks like Stanley Jordan, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck, John Lennon, and Steve Cropper. All of which makes the appearance of this show especially poignant, since the market for Roy Buchanan boots must rank just above live discs by Stuffy & the Frozen Parachute Band or Hello People on the “labour of love” obscurity scale. Telecaster County documents a pretty tasty show, tho’, a fine mix of rocking covers like “Johnny B. Goode,” “Green Onions,” and “Susie Q” with extended blues jams on tunes like “Hey Joe” and the ten-minute “Bad Case of the Blues.” Although this show took place chronologically between Buchanan’s second album, released in ’73, and 1974’s “That’s What I’m Here For,” there’s very little overlap in songs. The performances slash and burn, however, Buchanan’s Telecaster dominating the arrangements – the shy artist never liked singing much and mostly stuck to instrumentals – while the rest of the band struggles to keep up.

Other than a few tapes that the hardcore faithful keep in circulation, there’s not much live Buchanan to be found in this world, and most of it is from late in his career. With much of his official efforts lapsing into undeserved obscurity, I’d recommend that anybody who loves guitar playing first check out Sweet Dreams: The Anthology. If you dig that, I’d heartily recommend Telecaster County, a fine document of an artist in his prime. (By the way, do you think that the producers of this disc meant to call it “Telecaster Country”? Surely the fabled guitar deserves its own fantasyland and not just a single county, eh?) (Head Records CD-R, released 1999)

Review originally published by Live! Music Review zine...

Archive Review: Roy Buchanan’s Live At Rockpalast (2012)

Roy Buchanan is probably the best guitarist that you’ve never heard. Although he found a modicum of success with the twelve albums he released during his lifetime, two of them achieving Gold® sales status (a heady accomplishment in the 1970s), his influence reaches far beyond the meager commercial returns of his work. The “Master of the Telecaster” provided inspiration for fellow guitarists like Jeff Beck, Gary Moore, Danny Gatton, and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, among others with his heady brew of blues, roots-rock, R&B, and country music.

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

The Rev's Favorite Blues Albums of 2018

It was a bountiful year for blues music fans with more great albums than one person could legitimately afford to buy. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, just the reality of the situation. The Reverend did his part for the blues economy, buying up as many new releases as the bank account would allow, but even that falls short of covering the genre in toto…even counting the promo CDs sent by gracious labels for review.

The following ten albums aren’t necessarily the “best” of 2018 but rather those discs that were my favorite releases for the year, along with another ten worthy albums and blues reissues that almost made the cut…and any of these albums would make a great addition to your music library. Check out the Rev’s lists of favorite rock ‘n’ roll and archive/reissue albums from 2018 while you’re here!

Roy Buchanan – Live at Town Hall 1974 (Real Gone Music)
The legendary guitarist’s acclaimed 1975 album Live Stock was expanded to two discs by Real Gone Music for Live at Town Hall 1974. Featuring an impressive 21-song track list (compared to the six tracks on the original release), including 14 previously-unreleased song and improved sound, the set captures Buchanan’s entire November 27th performance at the Town Hall in New York City as taken from the original multi-track tapes. As such, Live at Town Hall 1974 displays the instrumentalist’s enormous talents and underrated vocals, which he shared with singer Billy Price. It’s a phenomenal and intimate recording that shows exactly why the late Buchanan’s star continues to shine so brightly...   BUY!
  

Shemekia Copeland – America’s Child (Alligator Records)
If Koko Taylor and Etta James are the standard by which female blues sings must aspire in the 21st century, Shemekia Copeland stands proudly alongside the legends. For my money, Copeland and Janiva Magness are the two best vocalists in the blues field today – male or female – and both women have brought their enormous talents to songs that fit nicely into the stylistic blend of blues, folk, and country music that is “Americana.” No matter what you want to call it, over the dozen songs included on America’s Child, Copeland’s amazing voice turns every performance into timeless American music.   BUY!

Tinsley Ellis – Winning Hand (Alligator Records)
Guitarist Tinsley Ellis has been kickin’ around the American blues scene since the late ‘70s, both with the Heartfixers and as a solo artist with better than a dozen albums to his name. Still, Ellis doesn’t get nearly enough praise for his enormous talents as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist, skills all in abundance on Winning Hand. Each performance here is indelibly imprinted with Ellis’s own robust brand of blues, soul, and rock ‘n’ roll and for those who love rowdy guitarplay, it just doesn’t get better than Winning Hand.   BUY!

Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite – No Mercy In This Land (Anti- Records)
From open to close, No Mercy In This Land is an incredible collaboration between two musical titans. Ben Harper brings intelligent, poetic lyrics and a sense of youthful vigor to the performances, an energy that spurs Charlie Musselwhite – a jaded veteran who has played with bona fide legends like Big Joe Williams, John Lee Hooker, and Michael Bloomfield – to play here like a man possessed. The result is an instantly classic album that fuses blues and soul music like few artists have been able to do. My only complaint is that the album’s 35-minute running time is too little when the music is as good as what you’ll find on No Mercy In This Land.   BUY!

 
Eric Lindell – Revolution In Your Heart (Alligator Records)
New Orleans-based blues guitarist Eric Lindell has been making great music for over a decade, at least since 2006’s Change In The Weather. The sublimely wonderful Revolution In Your Heart marks his return to Alligator Records, the label where he made three underappreciated albums during the late ‘00s. Recording in his Louisiana backyard, Lindell infuses a dozen original tracks with a subtle, laid-back, New Orleans vibe, effortlessly blending blues, funk, soul, and Southern rock into a heady musical brew. A talented artist worthy of greater acclaim, Eric Lindell is ready for prime-time.   BUY!

 
Nick Moss Band – The High Cost of Low Living (Alligator Records)
Bluesman Nick Moss has been kicking around the Windy City for better than two decades, making his bones playing with legends like Jimmy Dawkins and Buddy Scott. Breaking out on his own in the early ‘00s, Moss has released nearly a dozen critically-acclaimed studio and live albums. Hooking up with skilled harp wrangler Dennis Gruenling, Moss signed with the esteemed Alligator Records and delivered The High Cost of Low Living, the traditional-styled Chicago blues LP we knew he could create. Layering his fiery guitar licks alongside Gruenling’s raging harp, the two crank out a joyful noise. With their Alligator label debut, Moss, Gruenling and a talented crew update the Chicago blues for the 21st century.   BUY!

Preacher Boy – The Rumble Strip (Coast Road Records)
Although The Rumble Strip showcases a welcome expansion of Preacher Boy’s musical palette beyond his signature country-blues sound, Christopher Watkins’ vocals on these songs still growl and bite like Howlin’ Wolf chewing on a microphone, swallowing electricity and spitting out lightning bolts. It’s with his lyrical skills where Preacher Boy really shines, though, and The Rumble Strip is full of whip-smart story-songs backed by imaginative and often-dense instrumentation that proves that Preacher Boy is no one-trick pony. Recommended for rock and blues-rock fans alike, The Rumble Strip marks the return of a unique and original musical voice.   BUY!

Daniel Seymour & Mark Robinson – Chug It Down and Go (Blind Chihuahua Records)
Nashville guitarist Mark Robinson has a pair of critically-acclaimed electric blues studio albums – Quit Your Job, Play Guitar and Have Axe - Will Groove – to his credit along with a rowdy live LP that any blues fan should have on their shelf. Hooking up with fellow multi-instrumentalist Daniel Seymour, Robinson performs a breakneck stylistic U-turn with the acoustic Chug It Down and Go. Talent always shines through and Robinson and Seymour deliver a high-spirited, energetic, and entertaining collection of original songs with deep roots. It’s all quite clever and exceptionally well-performed, Chug It Down and Go a truly magical collaboration between two skilled and passionate music-makers.   BUY!

Various Artists – Confessin’ the Blues (BMG Music)
A multi-format various artist compilation, Confession’ the Blues was ‘curated’ by the Rolling Stones and is available in various multi-disc formats with cool, folksy cover artwork by the Stones’ Ron Wood. Most blues fans will have these songs already, but proceeds from the album go to Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven organization, a worthy cause by any measure. I initially bought Confessin’ the Blues, Vol. 1 as a two-LP vinyl set ‘cause I wanted the big artwork and the warm sound of wax. There’s just no way you’ll be disappointed by a track list that includes Muddy Waters, Little Walter, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf, and Elmore James with Sonny Boy Williamson, among other blues legends.   BUY! 

Various Artists – Memphis Rent Party (Fat Possum Records)
Released on vinyl to serve as a de facto “soundtrack” album to Robert Gordon’s excellent book Memphis Rent Party, the album features a veritable “who’s who” of unsung Memphis musical idols, from bluesman Furry Lewis and the legendary Alex Chilton to Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, early rockers Charlie Feathers and Jerry Lee Lewis, and bona fide Memphis music legend Jim Dickinson. No matter your taste in music, there’s something among the dozen tracks on Memphis Rent Party to tickle your fancy, the album’s creative diversity makes it the perfect soundtrack to listen to while reading the book!   BUY!

Honorable Mention: Elvin Bishop’s Big Fun Trio’s Something Smells Funky ‘Round Here; Joe Bonamassa’s British Blues Explosion; Catfish’s Get Down/Live Catfish; Buddy Guy’s A Man & the Blues [vinyl reissue]; Buddy Guy’s The Blues Are Alive & Well; Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa’s Black Coffee; Larkin Poe’s Venom & Faith; Fantastic Negrito’s Please Don’t Be Dead; Boz Scagg’s Out of the Blues; Junior Wells’ Coming At You [vinyl reissue]

Blues Blast Music Awards 2017 Winners

The Blues Blast Music Awards are sponsored every year by Blues Blast Magazine, a free weekly Internet blues zine with over 37,000 subscribers in all 50 U.S. states and more than 90 countries worldwide. Each year’s nominees are decided upon by a group of blues music industry professionals including music critics, festival promoters, producers, and musicians who choose the best of the blues in a dozen categories. Blues Blast Magazine subscribers then vote on the winners – one vote per subscriber – the winners announced this weekend.

The Reverend offers congratulations to all the below-listed winners of this year’s awards, and if you want to participate in voting for next year’s award winners, get over to Blues Blast Magazine and sign up for your free subscription and check out the full list of this year’s nominees.

Contemporary Blues Album
Samantha Fish’s Chills & Fever
   
Traditional Blues Album
Mississippi Heat’s Cab Driving Man

Soul Blues Album
Thornetta Davis’s Honest Woman

Rock Blues Album
Mike Zito’s Make Blues Not War

Acoustic Blues Album
Fiona Boyes’ Professin’ The Blues

Live Blues Recording
Walter Trout’s Alive In Amsterdam

Historical or Vintage Recording
Roy Buchanan’s The Genius of the Guitar - His Early Recordings

New Artist Debut Album
Southern Avenue’s Southern Avenue

Blues Band
Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials

Male Blues Artist
John Mayall

Female Blues Artist
Beth Hart

Sean Costello Rising Star Award
Southern Avenue