"THE GREATEST UNKNOWN GUITARIST"

IN THE BEGINNING by Roy Buchanan (Polydor, 1974)

This is one of my all-time favorite 8 track scores. I bought it for .29 cents at Rockaway Records in Silverlake, CA., and the amount of sublime bliss that it has given me for that paltry sum doesn’t equate. This proves the egalitarian potential of the 8 track: for the price of some spare change, one of life’s most profound visions may be glimpsed.  It is a collector’s Eldorado to not only find a hidden treasure in perfect condition, but to get it for a steal. 

I had never heard of Roy Buchanan when I decided: “what the hell”, and grabbed this immaculate cart,- but Robbie Robertson, Danny Gatton, Arlen Roth, Jeff Beck, David Gilmour, Jerry Garcia, and many others sure did, and they were influenced by his signature tone - (cited by Guitar Magazine as one of the 50 greatest of all time). And when I popped this cart into the player and heard his plaintive, wailing strings for the first time, I spontaneously burst into tears of delight. 

This was a decade after his early demise, at age 48,  when Roy was found suspiciously hanging by his shirt in a jail cell, after being arrested for “public intoxication”. Just imagine: if he had succeeded in his plan to quit the music business in the mid-60s, and become a hairdresser, the world would never have had these great recordings featuring his signature “pinch” harmonics, volume controlled “wah-wah”, and chicken picking. It’s a loss I don’t want to contemplate.

Legend has it that after Jimi Hendrix stole Roy’s wah-wah sound (by cheating with a pedal instead of using the volume control) - Roy decided to refocus his playing towards roots music, and in 1971 when the documentary “Introducing Roy Buchanan” was followed by an offer to this sharecropper’s son to join the Rolling Stones (which he declined), the world started taking notice.

On this, his fifth and last studio album, Roy delivers all the R&B telecaster goodness one could wish for (abetted by the punchy Tower of Power horns, and funky vocals by Billy Sheffield on Rescue Me and I’m a Ram). In the Beginning made it to #160 on the charts - and onto my eternal playlist.