roy-buchanan

Roy Buchanan poses with his Les Paul in this Alligator Records promo shot.

He’ll forever be remembered for his unparalleled mastery of the Telecaster, but Roy Buchanan kept an open mind when it came to his guitars.

Perhaps you’ve read something where an artist or a brand is dubbed “authentic.” It’s marketing hype that’s both real and manufactured, but I assure you it can be both a legit and important concept. The problem is when it gets used in the first person. Who judges whether something is authentic or not? Critics? Magazines? The internet? A brand itself? What does it mean to you? We often refer to things as the “real deal,” so is that the same? Not exactly.

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Photo by Leo Cackett

Small acts of kindness can go a long way. Embrace them. Perform them.

This is a story about a small act of kindness. It occurred in 1995 at a club gig, but the tale is rooted a dozen years earlier, when I started to develop my guitar playing in earnest. My bookend idols then were Roy Buchanan and Gang of Four guitarist Andy Gill—a roots and blues icon and a conflagrant punk-rock innovator. It might seem they had nothing in common, but listening reveals a shared love of taking risks, unpredictable turns in their playing, and a determination to push the envelopes of angularity and tone. Roy played a Tele and Andy had a Stratocaster, and when I initially took to stages, I had one of each.

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Life—and playing guitar—is really about the art of storytelling.

I became infatuated with Roy Buchanan’s incendiary playing when I was a relative youngster, after finding a copy of Guitar Player with Roy on the cover. He looked more like one of dad’s disheveled friends than a star, which intrigued me enough to pick up Roy Buchanan and Second Album—the first time I heard the war between angels and demons channeled through wood and steel.

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