Music review: Buddy Guy, Born to Play Guitar

Buddy Guy

Rating: 5/5 stars

With BB King's passing this year, the spotlight falls on 79-year-old Buddy Guy as the talisman of the Blues genre.

Guy links the blues of today with the traditions that began when the migration of the former Southern States sharecroppers to the industrial might of Chicago occurred in the 1940s.

While he is a generation behind the likes of Muddy Waters, Little Walter and Howlin' Wolf, his arrival at 21 in the Windy City exposed him to the hotbed of electric Chicago Blues.

Although he had already developed a distinctive guitar style which he had developed in Baton Rouge, for some reason Leonard Chess didn't rate him, so it was on the smaller Cobra label that Guy began his recording career.

Fast forward to 2015 and his new album, Born to Play Guitar, is a stand-out.

Years after Buddy Guy's individuality on the guitar influenced the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan, he still delivers a sound that's unique and top class.

The title track tracks the history of Guy from the cottonfields of Lettsworth, Louisiana to the mana in which his sound is held today.

Guests like ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons add an extra element to the soundscape of the album, but, really, this is all about what Guy has consistently delivered as a vocalist, composer and especially as a guitarist for nigh on five decades.

This just might be the best album Guy has delivered since the days of Chicago blues in the 1950s and 60s.