BLUES
Buddy Guy
"Bring 'Em In." Silvertone Records/Zomba. 13 tracks.
Grade: B

Yeah, yeah Eric Clapton, we see your quote reprinted throughout the press kit for blues legend Buddy Guy's latest album. The one about Guy being to you "what Elvis was for most other people. Whenever I see him, I become an ecstatic, helpless teenager all over again."

(ENLARGE)
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And that was an especially nice nod from one guitarist to another when Guy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March.

But what about Buddy Guy the singer? This guy has more vocal weaponry on this album of covers than the famously bullet-riddled rapper 50 Cent has songs mentioning guns.

On "Now You're Gone" his voice is sweet and vulnerable, like the tune's composer's, the late Curtis Mayfield. On "Ninety Nine and One Half," it goes all Hendrix, rough and ragged. And then alongside the light acoustic guitar of Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine," his voice has heft and weight to Tracy Chapman's lighter shade of surprising brightness.

It is only until he duets with fellow fret man Carlos Santana on Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You," and later on Mel London's "Cut You Loose," that you remember, yeah — yeah! — this Guy's some guitarist, too.

— Sonia Murray