Barnes & Noble
Since the late ‘50s when he arose from the hot bed of Chicago blues, guitarist and singer Buddy Guy has always kept up with the music of the moment. In performance he will move between Muddy Waters, James Brown, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton, all within one tune. On Sweet Tea, the drink that fuels the South and the name of the Oxford, Mississippi-based studio where the CD was recorded, Guy turns to the current music of the North Mississippi hill country for sustenance. It’s a sort of death rattle sound, gurgling out of the roots of R.L. Burnside and John Lee Hooker and taking a last gasp of the juke joint blues rock that is itself slowly disappearing. Authenticating Guy’s recording trip are veteran players of the area drummers Sam Carr (the Jelly Roll Kings) and Spam, who plays with T-Model Ford. For some youthful energy rhythm guitarist Jimbo Malthus of the Squirrel Nut Zippers and bassist Davey Faragher and drummer Pete Thomas of Elvis Costello’s Attractions were brought in, making it the kind of schizophrenic musical experience that has catapulted the North Mississippi Allstars to fame. Seven of the nine songs on Sweet Tea, come from the songbooks of Mississippians. For Kimbrough’s raw and repetitious “I Done Got Old” Guy plays solo, bemoaning the changes that have made both the music and the man obsolete. But then the band fires up for the droning “Baby Please Don’t Leave Me” and “Stay All Night, ” giving Guy the ambience of the Who’s early days. “Look What All You Got” has the loud, loose, electric feel of a North Mississippi Allstars juke joint gig while “Stay All Night” is in the Smokey Hogg vein. Guy’s guitar however still has the more precise sound of the blues’ citified side, and his shimmering riffs on “Tramp” sting like some of the angry, solitary material on his JSP recordings of the ‘70s, when a blues artists couldn’t draw more than a handful of diehards to a gig. The extended jam “I Got to Try You Girl” is driven by a dark lust that recalls Hooker’s sexually-charged “Crawling Kingsnake” while “Who’s Been Foolin’ You” is pure dancehall boogie. The final statement on the desperate search for good times in today’s Mississippi is Guy’s “It’s a Jungle Out There.” Since many of our inner cities are trashed by pollution, over-run with poverty and rising unemployment and freeways that seem to only go in circles, the state that birthed most of modern blues doesn’t look so bad after all. Roberta Penn
Barnes & Noble
Since the late ‘50s when he arose from the hot bed of Chicago blues, guitarist and singer Buddy Guy has always kept up with the music of the moment. In performance he will move between Muddy Waters, James Brown, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton, all within one tune. On Sweet Tea, the drink that fuels the South and the name of the Oxford, Mississippi-based studio where the CD was recorded, Guy turns to the current music of the North Mississippi hill country for sustenance. It’s a sort of death rattle sound, gurgling out of the roots of R.L. Burnside and John Lee Hooker and taking a last gasp of the juke joint blues rock that is itself slowly disappearing. Authenticating Guy’s recording trip are veteran players of the area drummers Sam Carr (the Jelly Roll Kings) and Spam, who plays with T-Model Ford. For some youthful energy rhythm guitarist Jimbo Malthus of the Squirrel Nut Zippers and bassist Davey Faragher and drummer Pete Thomas of Elvis Costello’s Attractions were brought in, making it the kind of schizophrenic musical experience that has catapulted the North Mississippi Allstars to fame. Seven of the nine songs on Sweet Tea come from the songbooks of Mississippians. For Kimbrough’s raw and repetitious “I Done Got Old” Guy plays solo, bemoaning the changes that have made both the music and the man obsolete. But then the band fires up for the droning “Baby Please Don’t Leave Me” and “Stay All Night, ” giving Guy the ambience of the Who’s early days. “Look What All You Got” has the loud, loose, electric feel of a North Mississippi Allstars juke joint gig while “Stay All Night” is in the Smokey Hogg vein. Guy’s guitar however still has the more precise sound of the blues’ citified side, and his shimmering riffs on “Tramp” sting like some of the angry, solitary material on his JSP recordings of the ‘70s, when a blues artists couldn’t draw more than a handful of diehards to a gig. The extended jam “I Got to Try You Girl” is driven by a dark lust that recalls Hooker’s sexually-charged “Crawling Kingsnake” while “Who’s Been Foolin’ You” is pure dancehall boogie. The final statement on the desperate search for good times in today’s Mississippi is Guy’s “It’s a Jungle Out There.” Since many of our inner cities are trashed by pollution, over-run with poverty and rising unemployment and freeways that seem to only go in circles, the state that birthed most of modern blues doesn’t look so bad after all.
Roberta Penn
All Music Guide
Apparently somebody took the criticisms of Buddy Guy's late-'90s Silvertone recordings to heart. They were alternately criticized for being too similar to Damn Right I Got the Blues or, as 1998's Heavy Love, too blatant in its bid for a crossover rock audience. So, after a bit of a break, Guy returned in 2001 with Sweet Tea, an utter anomaly in his catalog. Recorded at the studio of the same name in deep Mississippi, this is a bold attempt to make a raw, pure blues album -- little reliance on familiar covers or bands, no crossover material, lots of extended jamming and spare production. That's not to say that it's without its gimmicks. In a sense, the very idea behind this record is a little gimmicky -- let's get Buddy back to the basics -- even if it's a welcome one, but that's not the problem. The problem is that the production is a bit too self-conscious in its stylized authenticity. There's too much separation, too much echo, a strangely hollow center -- it may sound rougher than nearly all contemporary blues albums, but it doesn't sound gritty, which it should. Despite this, Sweet Tea is still a welcome addition to
Buddy Guy's catalog because, even with its affected production, it basically works. Playing in such an unrestricted setting loosens Buddy up, not just letting him burn on guitar, but allows him to act his age without embarrassment (check the chilling acoustic opener, "Done Got Old"). This may not showcase the showman of the artist live, the way Damn Right did, but it does something equally noteworthy -- it illustrates that the master bluesman still can sound vital and can still surprise. Stephen Thomas Erlewine
or link to hear an audio clip.
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