Review Summary: Even the conquering hero returns home eventually.
Buddy Guy owns the blues. Guy is often cited as the best blues man alive and he has the catalogue to back it up. Unlike many blues men who prefer finesse and getting the most out of each note Buddy plays his guitar like a wild man trying to coerce his guitar into sending as much noise as possible directed at the audience while often screaming his lyrics out just so his voice can be heard above the sonic assault of his band.
As a young man you move from Louisiana to Chicago because they pay janitors more and the music scene is booming. Then you are discovered by Muddy Waters and signed to a deal. After a while you are king of your adopted city and thus the top of your musical field. Subsequently you then stumble through the eighties before rebounding and releasing three straight award winning albums in the nineties and are again on top of the world. The year is now 2001 and success hasn’t quieted the critics. Are Buddy’s albums all starting to sound the same? What’s with all the guest spots? Is he becoming too commercial?
At this point what’s your next move?
For Buddy, now 65, the answer was to return to the place he left 45 years prior. So he headed back down south. Only now to Mississippi which had its own unique blues scene that was making some noise. Guy realized the Chicago scene that he mastered isn’t the same style as the music down south. So he enlists the help of the local talent as a backing band, gets the studio featured on the album cover and sets out to make the album that will give him the new direction he was searching for.
You can tell right away this record will be different when you hear only an acoustic guitar and Buddy’s vocals as he quietly laments over his advanced age. The song seems to be an homage to the blues of an older generation and as far from a normal Guy song as you can get. Track two, maybe the best on the album, serves as the real introduction to Buddy’s new style. It opens up with the backing band. This group churns out some serious grooves with an emphasis on southern stomping rhythms and fuzzy bass. Buddy is back on electric guitar for the rest of the album but his style is different. Instead of trying to melt your face he slows down a little and tries to melt your brain. On many of these songs it sounds like he is having a hard time holding himself back and that tension adds a real slow burn to the music. Many of the longer songs slowly add more and more layers of pressure until finally releasing the stress at the end.
One of the weaknesses of blues music is generally the lyrics. No matter how sincere sounding they are the subject matter is limited therefore making you feel like you’ve heard it all before. This is a challenge for all blues men and hampers some of Guy’s other records. So what does Buddy do to get around this? He sings less and lets the instrumental progressions carry the tunes. A lot of these songs are more like extended jams with a few lyrics thrown in which highlights the strength of these musicians working together.
One of the standout tracks would be Tramp where Buddy finally lets loose his guitar from self imposed boundaries and uses it with fury on any and all bystanders. Another highlight, I Gotta Try You Girl, is a perfectly done 12 minute jam that ends with a Hendrix tribute but is followed by the albums only weak song in Who’s Been Foolin’ You. The albums production strives to be different and hits that mark but in a bad way. They were obviously going for a grittier feel but it sounds more hollow than it should. Like the microphones were too far away from the instruments. It’s a shame they didn’t highlight the piano more on the tracks it appears.
Of all the records Buddy Guy had recorded before this one and including the ones he’s released since, none sound comparable. Most of his records are worth a listen but this one may be in the top five for the entire blues genre. Listening to the guitar weave in and out of the thick swampy grooves is insanely hypnotic and experiencing this blasting with the bass turned up should take anyone's blues away.
