Customer Reviews

Roy Buchanan

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

NO electric guitar player, not even Hendrix, played with more power than Roy Buchanan. Heart-rending, bone-crunching power. There is so much emotion in every note the music transcends categories. Labels like country, blues, soul are completely insignificant in the hands of Roy Buchanan. He used NO effects, NO pedals of any kind, just a worn Telecaster through a Fender amp -- no walls of Marshalls. He said if he needed more volume in a particular room he would just mike the amp. I had the honor and privilege of seeing Roy live several times during the late 70's and 80's -- some of the finest musical experiences of my life. I think this is his best recording -- Sweet Dreams, the Messiah, and the Blues -- it will make you cry. Roy could knock the bark off an oak tree at 60 yards. Albert Lee, Arlen Roth, David Grissom, Danny Gatton -- all trembled at Roy's approach.

Roy Buchanan is the worlds most underrated guitar player. He can hold his own with B.B., Clapton, and yes evern Hendrix. Buchanan is an amazing player with such a unique style and approach. He is truly one of the top 10 guitar players of all time and this album shows us that the most out of all Roys albums. Of all his albums this one was played with the most passion and fury! 'Cajun' is without a doubt the best track on the album with a killer solo, well the guitar through the whole song is amazing really. Other highlights would be 'Haunted House' and 'Sweet Dreams' both of which are Buchanan classics! Roy Buchanan is an album that each and every guitar player should own!

This is one of my favorite Roy Buchanan CDs. It's hard to pin Roy down, he played everything so well -- country, blues, rock, jazz,... you name it -- and moved seamlessly from one genre to another, so for lack of anything more descriptive he is often categorized as a blues guitarist. But while this CD has some superb blues playing on it (esp. "John's Blues"), it also has a number of strictly country cuts, which is why I think it's an excellent intro to Roy for fans of fine country guitar work.

As some of the other reviewers here have already noted, nobody before or since has played with the kind of power that Roy did. He was a creative pioneer with first-rate skill who first introduced a number of techniques and effects, however, the thing that sets him apart most was his _unmatched_ ability to capture and express genuine emotion in his playing and make his instrument say something truly meaningful.

If you're unfamiliar with Roy Buchanan, this CD will certainly give you an idea why so many superlatives have been used to describe him. But he is really at his best live, so if you are new to Roy and would like to explore further after listening to this CD, I would strongly suggest getting Live Stock and the more recently released American Axe: Live in 1974 -- both available here on Amazon.

This is a guitar lovers' and blues lovers' dream...blazing hot, scorching guitar played with drama and emotion. The tone cries, screams, and elates you.

"Sweet Dreams" "John Blues" and "Petes Blue" are killer blues songs. The muscular bends and abrasive single-pickup telecaster tone will rock your skull out.

The highlight of the album is "The Messiah will come again". It starts out as a somber, spiritual song and then, out of nowhere, a lightning fast guitar run transforms the song into a show case of fast playing and acrobatic bends.

Roy Buchanan is an unheralded guitar god and this album is terrific. Get it !

The old 8-track of Roy Buchanan I listened to growing up has a whole new dimension on compact disc.

Roy's solos literally crackle through the speakers. "John's Blues" is amazing. "Pete's Blue" will make the fine hairs on your neck stand on end. The chord progression he uses on "Pete's Blue" is downright amazing. It's the best thing on the album.

Or maybe "Messiah" is the best thing. It's perhaps his best known song. It's an exhibition on how to play the Telecaster; how to squeeze every last decibel of sound out of wood and steel, which he proceeds to do near the end of the song as he dances all the way up the fretboard.

This album would have five stars if not for the largely uninspired vocal tracks. Roy's guitar saves the day, though.

Even if you don't like the blues, you'll love this album. It's Roy Buchanan 101. And it's scary. But a good scary.

This album is amazingly soulfull and Roy Buchanan is so underated. His sound and technique are heavenly, and his mastery of these two attributes are almost at the level of page and hendrix. I really disagree with the guy that said that his overall playing was just as much thanks to his guitar (a telecaster) as his skill and talent. In fact i thought the opposite basically. All of the greatest guitarists have a custom model with 500 dollar pickups and tons of pedals and distortion boxes, but you see this sort of hick country dude pick up just a good old american telescaster, and blows the roof off. Some other guys were right about some of the tracks, a little annoying becuz some guys want rock and blues but there very country, however, not one song is without a searing guitar solo that will make your hair stand on end. And, many of the tracks are GREAT the whole way too, including the blues numbers and the messiah. So pick it up if you want a rare experience of a great guitarist who will influence your playing and just amaze you.

Reticient Roy Buchanan was precisely what he cracked himself up to be: just an ordinary fellow with nothing all that much to say (other than his puckish taste for spinning some tall tales about his birth and childhood) - until you put a guitar in his hands. His genuine unease with fame (matched best in his own era by Mike Bloomfield) gave his striking guitar playing a little extra and often harrowing edge, which served his deeply individualistic meld of blues and country musics in a manner which couldn't be duplicated if anyone tried.

Plenty enough did try, of course; this recluse was influential beyond his self-imposed scope. (Consider: Jeff Beck, for one, dedicated "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" on his resurrective "Blow By Blow" to Buchanan, whom Beck admitted emulating for his sleek but soulful excursion on that much-admired track.) His first official Polydor album (the label had rejected his first try at a first album, spurning his wish to pump it like he loved it on his home turf, rejecting the obvious call for guitar-slinging strut and jive; in fact, the label actually contemplated suing him for breach of contract over it) delivered the goods for the most part and then some, though Buchanan sometimes gets in his own way. When he doesn't it's exhilarating music even with that trebly-to-the-third-power sound of his worn Telecaster: "I Am A Lonesome Fugitive" could have been (and still seems) at least as autobiographical as Buchanan's near-signature, haunted-mountain blues lope, "The Messiah Will Come Again," which is itself a stop-the-clock proposition even if Buchanan's vocal recitation sounds more like he's trying to convince himself.

But "John's Blues" is downright shattering, Buchanan crunching one after another line of pure deep emotion with such commitment that even when he's only too obvious (his one wounding flaw: he had superlatively advanced technique and often could not resist letting it ride over pure music feeling; granted, he would find himself often enough in imposed music settings which must have felt suffocating or insane,even if he could and usually did hold his own) the soul overcomes.

That tension, plus his sometimes-inability to decide his music (he often seemed as though he couldn't make up his mind whether he was a bluesman, a country picker - though you'd take on the dichotomy, too, if you could wring out as gripping a version of "Sweet Dreams" as Buchanan's - or a kind of fusionesque nomad) would stay with Buchanan throughout his life. But in due course he would recover his truest root and make music equal to that root's best exercises here. By any accounting - of his style or his life - Roy Buchanan was born to play the blues.

A friend of mine had a couple of Roy Buchanan's albums but I hardly gave them a second thought. So when I spotted a cassette of this album in a local record stores free bin I took it and now having listened to it I am happily surprise.Roy Buchacan has the great versitility on his guitar that many of the 60's greats such as Hendrix has,but production wise Roy leaves it to the bare bones-so all you can hear is his great tone on his instrument and (for better or worse) his monotone,egoless vocal stylings.Although I often hear Buchanan listed as a blues guitarist this particular recording is very musically diverse-covering rock,pop,country and even zydeco along with his blues influences.The two zydeco rhythm tunes hear "Cajun" and "Haunted House" are two of the best songs hear with their peppy tempo and equally peppy riffing.The album starts off with two lightweight sounding (but only deceptively so) poppish tunes in the gentle "Sweet Dreams" and the cathy "I Am A Lonesome Fugitive",which has a strong country-rock flavor.As far as the blues goes "John's Blues" has the unusual destinction of adding a very Eastern/Arabic sounding modality into Roy's bluesy guitar solos.On "Pete's Blues" Roy brightens up his blues with a lot of tasty melodic surprises and playful "fluttering" riffs that totally transend the rather stereotypcial blues-rock backing. "The Messiah Will Come Again" is and almost gospelish narrative spoken by Roy in almost a whisper and is a very surprising song to have on an album like this.And yes-Roy has thought you you country swing lovers too with a cover of the Hank Williams classic "Hey Good Lookin" and,if you listen closley even that has a little zydeco/cajun rhythm in it too!During an era when Bob Dylan,The Band and others were really going for a way to try to draw the rootsiness from rock n' roll Roy Buchanan really just showed us how many different American roots oriented music's rocked pretty hard on their own.And by giving the album an unadorned but modern production everyone seems to have gotton the point and really enjoy this music.

Some hits, some misses on this album. But TMWCA is worth the price of admission. Roy's best tune, IMHO. Gary Moore did a cover of that tune a few years ago. I first heard this album because my brother brought it home from college. TMWCA remains my all-time favorite tune. The solo still makes the hair stand up on my neck. You will have to overlook the vocals, though.

While this first album is all over the map musically, it does represent well the diversity of this awesome guitarist. Classic country pickin on Haunted House and Cajun, and the signature tune the Messiah Will Come Again all feature his distinct sound. Listening now to the sadness in Sweet Dreams seems to be a reflection of his life. The beer hall classic, I Am a Lonesome Fugitive contains another brilliant guitar solo with, and for a Buchanan song...sometimes a rarity, first rate vocals.