Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Buddy Guy, RCA Records 2022.
The importance of the blues in the history of popular music can’t be overstated.
It has been fundamental in shaping the course of modern American, and thus world music, and in doing so has indelibly stamped black music as intrinsic to world-wide youth culture.
The early origins of the blues, in Negro work songs and chants – mixed with southern gospel, produced a uniquely American musical form that gave voice to the experiences, hopes, wishes and desires of Negro people.
But it may have remained culturally exclusive if it hadn’t been for a group of young white musicians who adopted it, both in America in the 1950s, and in the UK in the 1960s.
Bill Haley and The Comets, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, and particularly Elvis Presley, amongst many others, brought the blues crashing into the living rooms of white families throughout America.
It gave universal exposure to many of the greatest black blues exponents that would have otherwise been plying their trade on the secondary, ethnic, circuits.
People of my generation have grown up with, and sometimes have experienced first-hand, some of the great blues pioneers whose names will live forever; BB King, Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee, John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry… and the list goes on.
Very few of those pioneers are left and so it makes this record by Buddy Guy all the more special.
Buddy Guy is now 86 years old and he’s about to embark on his farewell tour.
His voice is still as strong as ever and his guitar work is sublime.
The Blues Don’t Lie is his 19th studio album.
He’s recorded 36 if you include his albums with Junior Wells, Memphis Slim, and Phil Guy, and many more if we include his contributions to various collections.
He’s been joined by numerous guests on The Blues Don’t Lie including Mavis Staples on the magnificent track We Go Back, Elvis Costello on Symptoms of Love, James Taylor on the equally magnificent Follow The Money, Bobby Rush on What’s Wrong With That, Jason Isbell on the politically charged Gunsmoke Blues, and Wendy Moten on the up-tempo boogie House Party.
The final track on the 16-track disc has Buddy doing a solo acoustic rendition of the blues standard King Bee.
Although he’s still playing beautifully this may be his last album. If it is, he’s going out on a high.
Thanks to my mate Neil for lending me this album for review.
