Roy Buchanan

[ksdaddy]

RIP to Roy Buchanan who died this day in 1988. Nicknamed 'The World's Greatest Unknown Guitarist' who was asked to join the Rolling Stones... and turned them down. August 15, 1988 he was found in a jail cell from an alleged suicide (hanging). Nobody had much explanation for the dozen or so bruises on his head though. I suppose they were self inflicted too?

[stein]

I know nothing of that, like why he was in or how long, or what his life was like.

 

But, we all know that often the pain of getting bruises is usually more than the physical, and the pain that would cause someone to kill himself is more than that.

 

Sad deal, hopefully he is not feeling this pain now.

[fl00dsm0k3]

until today i never reallly heard of him but its sad to see someone go like that

[saturn]

Sad day. His band mates definately believed the red-neck cops who arrested him did it.

[Mark]

I saw him at the Great Southeast Music Hall in Atlanta, must of been late 70's. He is a guitar hero of mine.

[G McBride]

Watched a few of his youtube videos after reading this at breakfast. Wish I could have seen him live.

[milod]

Yeah, I'd say if you ain't seen one of those vids, you should.

 

Start maybe with one he did for Mundell Lowe, "Misty," on an early jazz tv show. Awesome.

 

Then blues, rock... the "country" thing "Sweet Dreams of You..."

 

m

[powerwagonjohn]

I saw him several times here in the Twin Cities, he was always fantastic and a great inspiration. I remember him being called the "master of the telecaster" RIP Roy

[Mark]

Also known as a player who could make his guitar cry

[milod]

There were more than Roy who were picking up guitar and their heads were heavily influenced by the steel guitar of their impressionable years.

 

The Tele and Jazzmaster seemed both to work well for that sorta thing with the pinkie of the right hand working the master volume. It really can change the attack of the picking, but requires a "thinking ahead" for making it work, obviously. A volume pedal does about the same and was used by more than a few rockers perhaps more than country pickers.

 

m

[Californiaman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCZ6V3ASKwI

[BT Bob]

"After Hours" and "Tribute to Elmore James" are 2 of my most favouritest guitar pieces ever.

 

A true genius of the Telecaster (I assume he must have played other guitars, but he's most associated with the Tele, I would say).

[craigh]

Towards the end of his life, he played a Les Paul.

 

Craig

[tazzboy]

[bonzoboy]

There have been several attempts made to get an official inquiry into his mysterious and untimely death as there were a lot of unanswered questions and unexplained occurances related to his death.For whatever reason an official judicial inquiry was never sanctioned and maybe never will be.To me the whole thing has a stink that's being covered up even after all these years.One can only hope that the guilt may eat up one of those involved and they may expose the truth in a deathbed confession somewhere down the road.I doubt very much that he died by his own hand as do his family and close friends.

[Kenny V]

I was lucky enough to see him at a local junior college in the early 70's. He was one of the fastest playing guitar players I have ever had the pleasure to see.

[L5Larry]

I first became aware of Roy from the "Livestock" album. "Can I Change My Mind" got a lot of airplay on the local FM rock station. Years later I was playing in a Soul/R&B/Motown horn band that did the Tyrone Davis version of that song. I played the Roy Buchanan version guitar rhythm behind them, it worked pretty well.

[jaxson50]

I was a fan....still am...this is from his 1985 Carnegie Hall show;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TU3vwb1lcg

[milod]

In ways this remains my favorite Buchanan piece.

 

m