Personally, I think that Buddy's best work was done in the early to mid 60's with Junior Wells. Junior was definitely the leader of that band, much more innovative, and held everything together. Buddy's more recent work (say the past 15 years) shows a propensity for histrionics, both in his playing and singing. In many cases his bands at live shows leave a lot to be desired and the talent level in the bands simply is not there; my gut feeling is that he can get away with paying this type of talent less and realizes that he can draw on his own reputation, particularly with white suburban audiences who may be appriciative but not particularly well exposed to great blues (unfortunately we all can't live in Chicago, Memphis, Houston or other blues haunts). For now, though, I think Buddy lives mainly on his reputation. He'll be in my city this summer for a local blues festival, but I doubt if I'll make much of an effort to see him. As the post above suggests, his vocals can get a bit on your nerves and for my money there are probably at least a dozen better guitar players playing in relative obscurity in Chicago today.
New Buddy Guy - "Blues Singer"
Anyone else heard this? "Blues Singer", named in tribute to Muddy Water's "Folk Singer" which Buddy played on. This is a fantastic cd. The recording is excellent. I turned it up to a somewhat loud(so says my wife) level, and from the first moment of the first song, "Hard Time Killing Floor", it sounded as if Buddy were in my living room. This album is acoustic with five songs featuring only Buddy on guitar/vocals and Jimbo Mathus on guitar. The second song is John Lee Hooker's "Crawlin' Kingsnake". It has Eric Clapton and BB King as guests. That's right - BB King acoustic. Highly reccomended!