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!
clingman71

Showing 2 responses by redkiwi

I have been a Buddy Guy fan a long time and agree with HDM that there was much great work with Junior Wells, and a lot of average stuff since. But I really really like Blues Singer. If it has to rock out for your juices to flow, then you will not like this album, for sure. And if I read between the lines then that appears to be the main reason for the negative words above. But I like it and cannot relate to the "too much reverb" and "has to fake singing" comments at all with this one.
I have that Cd, and you are right. No argument, his work with Junior Wells was the best. For me, what was great on that work was Buddy's guitar, and Junior's singing. Buddy's singing has been more erratic, sometimes lacking soul, sometimes not. Blues Singer is a bit odd in that Buddy sings the blues very gently. There is a place for that and the singing has soul this time. And this time the lightning licks are absent and rightly so with this form of material. But the timing and bending of the notes is still a master at play.