Damn Right, I've Got the Blues

Guy, Buddy

album cover

No, Really, He Has Them

Buddy Guy begins several songs here where most bluesmen end up—belting at the very top of his range. From the first notes of "Five Long Years," for example, he can be heard snarling as though he's been singing this particular song for ten minutes. Rage fills his voice, and shoots through his guitar. He's been wronged, and complains bitterly about how he worked two jobs for years, bringing home all his pay to an ungrateful woman who's taken advantage of him.

Starting at such a fever pitch can be risky. But Guy—the Chicago guitarist and singer who was present at the creation of important blues works in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s—some-how finds new places to take the pain. Curiously, though, when it's time for him to take a guitar solo, he goes in the other direction. He hushes the band down to a whisper, and then sneaks in all quiet-like. Having set the scene with those neon-lit verses, Guy's now going to take you deeply into this feeling, to places only the guitar can go. Note for stabbing note, he makes sure you appreciate the full dimension of what he's been talking about.

This record—which is sometimes referred to as a "comeback" even though Guy never went away—offers stupendous guitar solos, some-times two in the same song. They're compact survey courses in blues feeling, covering every-thing from the sotto voce moan to the highly sexualized pitch-bending tirade to the full-on Muddy Waters roar he learned from playing alongside the master. A born entertainer, Guy has all kinds of crowd-pleasing tricks at his disposal. He turns out a solo on "Early in the Morning" that's so ferocious it humbles guests Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, then blazes through "Five Long Years" like he's out to rekindle that classic Chicago blues fire all by himself.

Genre: Blues
Released: 1991, Silvertone
Key Tracks: "Damn Right, I've Got the Blues," "Black Night," "Five Long Years."
Catalog Choice: The Complete Chess Studio Sessions
Next Stop: Otis Rush: The Classic Cobra Recordings
Book Page: 332

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