Roy Buchanan

Live: Amazing Grace - August 2009 release date

Roy Buchanan's is one of the most innovative guitar players that I have heard. I was fortunate to see him perform live twice in the 1970's. Amazing! He generally plays with a blues or rock attitude. though he does stretch into different genres like surf, or country. So while Roy isn't not a strictly blues performer, but when he goes for that approach he's clearly one of a kind. From Second Album, "Tribute To Elmore James" is a great example of him playing the blues. Why that song gets left off of so many compilations should be criminal, there is room for those three and half minutes of bliss. 

Buchanan's playing offers the guitar sustain that Carlos Santana mastered, the phasing of David Gilmour (particularly like he demonstrated on Animals), the natural blues flow of Stevie Ray Vaughan, all rolled into one. Buchanan also is quite an exceptional melodic player when he wants to be, but doesn't emphasize that side into his playing as extensively as players like Jerry Garcia. Perhaps most important or at a minimum utterly impressive, is that Buchanan's playing is so unique and original. 

If I was to name a guitarist most like Roy Buchanan I'd say Danny Gatton. Though, Gatton leaned more to country, jazz and other genres. But the way these two play their Telecaster's is breathtaking. Gatton met Buchanan, who taught Danny some tricks. They even shared a bandmate, keyboardist Dick Heintze. 

Trivia
The Departed by Martin Scorsese ends with Buchanan's rendition of the Don Gibson country classic "Sweet Dreams."

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Building a Roy Buchanan collection.

My favorite Roy Buchanan material is: in the studio, his self titled album and Second Album. In, addition any of his live offerings. Besides that, his other albums all of some dazzling material. Guess what, his two disc compilation, Sweet Dreams: The Anthology, has all of that, except his Alligator material. 

One of the problems with collecting Roy Buchanan's material on a budget is that many of the releases are short in length and several are hard to find and as a result are sold for high prices. Below are a couple of good options to build a Roy Buchanan collection.