Roy Buchanan
Live In Japan 1978

LA RECENSIONE

Imagine you went out for a walk last night.

Imagine you wore shoes that make noise when you walk. You're on this somewhat narrow city street, inexplicably dark and deserted. Imagine there's only the light of the moon, full (so it's even more blues). Imagine you’ve had a few too many drinks (so it's even a bit rock). You're there. You've left behind the noisy and at times unbearable crowd of the square quite a while ago, mumbling a completely ambiguous excuse about your sudden decision to leave. Someone noticed you left, someone else did not.

Anyway, now you're walking briskly on uneven pavement, fiddling with 30 cents in the pocket of your jacket and everything has a certain rhythm: the shoes and the rustling pants, the can and the manhole, the cats and the trash. You raise your head while thinking about scraps of cheap poetry generously inspired by the street, the atmosphere, your mental state. And so you go on. When suddenly you realize you have a guitar riff in your head that for about three-quarters of an hour has been frantically tickling your brain in that alcoholic delirium, as if someone were silently screwing you in your sleep and you only notice it now. Now you understand where all that rhythm around you was coming from. You think: "Soul Dressing", it's Roy Buchanan. The CD you were listening to before going out.

Someone said that Roy Buchanan was "the best unknown guitarist in the world." Ah, and I am "the most UNKNOWN in the world, period". And damn it. You have an ethyl-hysterical laugh. It’s over. You continue to have that series of notes in your head, hypnosis-effect, and an epileptic groove from your stomach downwards. Meanwhile, you're at home, you climb the stairs tripping two or three times, counting the floors so they seem less. You arrive anyway out of breath. Insert-turn-push the key, enter the house, play the CD, and go straight to the heart: -song number three- it's a version of "Hey Joe" so long, so slow, so beautiful, and so unexpected that on certain notes of those nine minutes of guitar delirium you almost feel like crying, with those 3-minute 30-seconds explosions that are practically electric razor slashes, and then he blasts you with "Purple Haze" at the end...

The alcohol is fading -you think back to the night spent- "Lonely Days Lonely Nights" starts: it's slow but not too much. It is soul-blues, I believe: "there's been so lonely lonely nights, since I fell in love with you, tell me baby, what am I going to do?". Yes, it's definitely blues. The voice is Byrd Foster's. Damn, you could sing it for hours. "Blues Otani": somehow and somewhere all the libido stifled by heroin and mocked by alcohol has to come out. Roy makes it come out from his hazelnut-colored Fender Telecaster with peeling paint, accompanying a "Beibebabybabybeeeeeeeeeeibe" that would bring anyone to their knees. And then he continues with the devilish rock-blues of "My Baby Says She’s Gonna Leave Me". And then you're already at the bottom. It might be the alcohol that shrinks time, or maybe you just want more of this sound that clings to your sides and shakes them in that sensual and violent way, while a distorted guitar climbs directly into your brain. In any case, "Sweet Dreams" lifts you up: it has a bittersweet taste and then there's a dizzying solo.

Roy used to say he was half-man and half-wolf: I believe it. At this point, you look at the moon. It's still there. You touch a leg, scratch your head. Everything is fine, you're a bit febrile. You've just experienced some fantastic sensations.

Now imagine putting the CD back at the beginning. Do it. And imagine being in the Japanese crowd at that concert in 1978. Come on and GET IT!