Buddy Guy - Live At The Checkerboard Lounge - Chicago 1979 (1988)

This is a piece of musical history. Buddy Guy, simply one of the greatest blues performers there has ever been performing in front of his home audience, his neighbours, friends and fellow musicians in his own club which was very much situated in the Chicago ghetto. It was 1979. The blues had been pronounced dead by the music industry but in the hands of musicians like Buddy and people running little labels, booking clubs and tours under difficult financial situations there was a pretty healthy heartbeat - it's just that no one was paying much attention! It took a few more years but how things changed! These days things seemed to have slipped back somewhat but nowhere near how things were back then. But why did a revival happen' Because stuff like this was happening - Buddy was cooking that night! It's a little rough around the edges sometimes, perhaps Buddy is working out some ideas here and there, perhaps the 'audience' doesn't conform to how a white middle class audience would. Good!! This is the blues at its most direct. And the guitar - Buddy just plays like he's playing for his life. And Ken Rasek's expert multi-track recording captures everything perfectly. A year later Buddy would go into the studio again for JSP and record the 'Breaking Out' album which seemed to me like an intense and angry cry of pain - heavy stuff. A year after that it was the studio again for what has to be the most perfect Chicago blues album, 'D.J. Play My Blues' - sublime. That was it. Soon superstardom beckoned again and Buddy was back in his rightful place. At the top.JOHN STEDMAN