Roy Buchanan

Roy Buchanan: The Messiah Will Come Again
From: Roy Buchanan, 1972

Roy Buchanan: I'm A Ram
From: In the Beginning, 1974

Roy Buchanan was a guitarist's guitarist. Highly influential but relatively unknown, sort of like Scarface before the rap world started paying attention to Texas. Taught Robbie Robertson to play guitar. Known for spending hours in the studio recording jaw-dropping solos, then recording over them with some even more impressive shit. Kind of a strange dude.

"Messiah" is a phenomenal track on its own, no doubt. Quiet organ with somber guitar noodling. Roy muttering about "a strange little town called the world." And then it breaks wide open with a three minute solo. But what's more strange is that directly after this song on his self-titled album comes the cheesey country-rock track called "Hey Good Lookin." I would have included it for contrast, but it's really terrible; instead you get Roy's very good Al Green Cover.