One hot Guy

In 1990, he signed on with the British-based indie Silvertone, which is distributed in the US via RCA, and began recording discs again that have helped re-invigorate his career. Hell, they've carried the now 59-year-old Letts (Louisiana) phenom to the top of the blues world, where he enjoys a household-name status only a handful of others blues players -- Robert Cray and B.B. King among them -- currently do.

Nowadays, the three-time Grammy winner easily fills larger venues like Lupo's in Providence and Boston's Roxy, where he appears this weekend, on Friday and Saturday, May 10 and 11, respectively. And both shows are likely to crowd the bigger rooms, thanks to the quality of his Silvertone discs, including 1991's Damn Right, I've Got the Blues and the studio follow-ups Feels like Rain and Slippin' In. Although these new sounds have brought Guy acclaim, consistent four-star reviews, and heightened visibility, his portfolio was still lacking a good live recording that showcased his utter mastery of guitar dynamics, as well as the fire of his supercharged blues/rock chops. Until now, that is.

Believe it or not, Guy hadn't had a live solo recording out for an unbelievable 28 years, ever since This Is Buddy Guy! surfaced on Vanguard -- full of tight, impassioned slow blues and high-octane R&B -- back in 1968. But that drought is over thanks to the recently released LIVE! The Real Deal (Silvertone) -- a follow-up of sorts that, like This Is Buddy Guy!, offers an appropriate mix of his sounds. This time in a modern context. Recorded in two sessions at Guy's Windy City blues club Legends as well as at New York's Irving Plaza, the disc is an intimate and perfectly balanced get-together with Guy and a stripped-down little big band featuring pianist (and fellow Chess veteran) Johnny Johnson and Saturday Night Live bandleader/guitarist G.E. Smith and his horn-fortified TV group. Together, they lend the perfect backing to Guy as he makes his way through nine readings of songs he often favors in his shows.

It's ironic, but Guy kicks off the disc with the same song he used to open his 1967 classic Vanguard LP A Man and His Blues: an up-tempo shuffle he wrote in the mid '60s entitled "I Got My Eyes on You." Fueled by his stinging lead runs and a brawnier, Marshall-amplified tone, it's an up-to-date version of a song that had a helluva punch back in '68 and sets the pace well for the next two tunes: a slow heavy cover of Robert Nighthawk's "Sweet Black Angel" and a rolling cover of Elmore James's "Talk to Me Baby."

All the uptown material Guy does on the disc is fine, full of his staccato thunder and lightning-fast runs. But it's his slow blues on songs like "Angel," his now-prophetic "My Time After Awhile," and the autobiographical "The First Time I Met The Blues" that are the best parts of The Real Deal. The latter two were blockbusters when Guy first waxed them at Chess, in the mid '60s. And they're that way here as well, done in the deep, quiet style of brooding after-hours Chicago blues. It's a style in which nobody can touch Guy.

Unwinding slowly on each number, he pulls long, biting notes from his guitar to develop the mood before working into the lyrics in his animated, testifying vocal style. Equal parts screech and uptight holler, Guy tells us on "Time" that an old friend he calls Mr. Blues is with him constantly. In fact, Mr. Blues is hangin' 'round "every night and every noon." When he sings the line as he does, with the feeling bubbling up from his throat, it's hard to doubt Guy. He clearly knows what the blues is about.

And though it's his six-string chops that have won this gifted guitarist much of his fame, his vocals are his secret weapon. He can sing about heartbreak and pain as if it were three o'clock in the mornin' anytime, with complete believability; or deliver the lines to Bobby Bland's "Ain't That Lovin' You" in a soulful croon that begs comparison to Bland's Duke Records original. Buddy Guy's The Real Deal is just that.