Review: Buddy Guy, Skin Deep

Sometime around 1990 Alligator Records put a promotional tour on the road headlined by Buddy Guy.  I caught the show in a rundown VFW that was called a “hall” but was more like a shack.  It was the kind of place where the bar had been been nailed together from 2×4’s and plywood, mismatched straightback chairs and scarred tables were scattered haphazardly about, and the “stage” was a small platform raised six inches off the floor against a side wall.  The place stank of old beer, stale sweat and dead ends.  

I forget who the opening act was.  Lucky Peterson and Kenny Neal combined to deliver a roaring second set that came within an eyelash of setting the place on fire.  When they finished the beer was fresh, the sweat was dripping and there was no end in sight.  The place was hotter than a motherfucker.  Guy was the headliner but it surely looked like Peterson and Neal had taken the crowd as high as it could go.

Guy’s band came on sometime around 1:00 am.  They were hard and tight but there was no Buddy Guy.  Okay, I thought, they’re using the opening where the band does a number and then they introduce the leader.  The opening number hit the break and Guy’s unmistakeable guitar came roaring from . . . from where?  He wasn’t on stage and there wasn’t any dressing room or curtain he could enter from.  Was he crouched down hiding behind one of the amps?  Nope.  People began looking around the club, was he in the crowd?  Nope.  Finally somebody found him.  The son of a bitch was out in the parking lot all by himself ripping off a raging guitar lead that ignited the bonfire that Peterson and Neal had laid.  People went berserk and spilled out the door.  Surrounded by screaming people Guy ramped it up higher.  It was incandescent.

Buddy Guy was 54 years old that night.  But that was then and this is now and now Buddy Guy is 72.  72 with a new record.  Can he still bring it?  Are you fucking kidding me?  He can bring it and take it back home again.  The idea of a 72 year old man singing I’m-a-stud songs seems ridiculous until you hear Guy on numbers like “Out in the Woods” and album opener “”Best Damn Fool”.  Then you think maybe it ain’t so ridiculous, you think maybe you better lock up your wives and daughters.  Guy doesn’t sound “good for his age”, he sounds dangerous.

Skin Deep has attracted attention because of the presence of a number of high profile guests like Robert Randolf, Eric Clapton, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks.  The guests fit seemlessly with Guy and his band and they all acquit themselves admirably but the story here is Buddy Guy.  He sings with the voice and conviction of a man a third his age and he can play guitar in circles around almost anyone on the planet.  This cat can play.  One of the nicer features of the CD’s packaging is that it lists the guitar Guy plays on each track so non-guitar playing listeners who may have heard about, say a ‘57 Strat or a ‘74 Telecaster can link the sound with the guitar.

This is a terrific album from a man who is a national treasure.  The title may be Skin Deep but Guy is coming from deep in the marrow and he’s just as exciting now as he was when he was a youngster playing out in the parking lot.

Review: Grupo Fantasma, Sonidos Gold

35 seconds in and you’ll know whether or not you’re going to like Sonidos Gold.  ”El Sabio Soy Yo”, the opening track starts with four bars of a huge and arresting funk drum vamp.  At 10 seconds a powerful soul-review horn section is laid over the drums for 8 bars. Grupo Fantasma then drives the whole thing to a rollicking cumbia at the 12 bar point.  It kills.  We were hooting, hollering and dancing the very first time we heard it and we haven’t stopped months later.

Grupo Fantasma is an Austin-based Latin big band that mixes funk, soul, cumbia, salsa, rumba and umpteen other latin rhythms in a high energy stew that never quits throughout Sonidos Gold.  They are also something of an oddity in the music business as they’ve built their reputation almost solely on word of mouth and incendiary live shows.  After selling thousands of CDs out of the back of their van during live gigs they were offered major label support.  They turned it down in order to retain full creative control of their music and how it’s packaged.  

Based on Sonidos Gold, it sounds like they made the right decision.  The album has been in constant rotation in our house for months; we just can’t seem to get it out of the CD player.  Typically an album is reviewed here after it drops out of the mix and finds it’s way to the storage rack.  Sonidos Gold is the exception to that rule.  I expect we’ll be listening to this one until another one of Grupo Fantasma’s albums comes into the house.  If you would like an introduction to Latin rhythms, Sonidos Gold would be a great choice as it combines these rhythms with what may be the more familiar soul and funk.  If you are a fan of powerful big band Latin music Sonidos Gold is highly recommended.  Good times.

Review: Robert Forster & Grant McLennan, Intermission

Robert Forster and Grant McLennan were the creative heart of the Go-Betweens, an Australian band known for their scintillating pop and alt rock.  The Go-Betweens released six strong and critically praised albums from 1982 to 1988 and then broke up.  They got back together in 2000 and continued producing beautiful and well written pop until McLennan passed away in his sleep from an apparent heart attack in 2006.  

From 1988 until they reunited in 2000, Forster and McLennan each released a series of solo albums.  Intermission is a two disc set, one devoted to each of the musicians, that collects tracks from these solo albums.  The tracks on each of their respective dics were chosen by Forster and McLennan.  The discs come packaged with a booklet that contains the lyrics for each song along with the musicians playing on each track.

Fans of the Go-Betweens who don’t have Forster and McLennan’s solo albums will especially enjoy Intermission.  The expert songcraft that defined the Go-Betweens is equally evident here.  Forster is the more adventuresome songwriter while, at least to my ears, McLennan is the better singer.  Together they were brilliant; apart they are each very good in their individual ways.  

If you are not familar with the work of Forster and McLennan I would recommend trying a Go-Betweens album before Intermission.  We have particularly enjoyed 2003’s Bright Yellow Bright Orange.  If you like what you hear you are in the wonderful position of either trying more Go-Betweens or listening to what Forster and McLennan each did on their own.  Either way you win.