Roy Buchanan

Leroy "Roy" Buchanan (September 23, 1939 – August 14, 1988) was an American guitarist and blues rock musician. A pioneer of the "Telecaster sound", Buchanan worked as a sideman and as a solo artist, with two gold albums early in his career and two later solo albums that made it to the Billboard chart. He never achieved stardom, but is considered a highly influential guitar player. Guitar Player praised him as having one of the "50 Greatest Tones of All Time". He appeared on the PBS music program Austin City Limits in 1977 (season 2).

Leroy Buchanan was born in Ozark, Arkansas, and was raised there and in Pixley, California, a farming area between Visalia and Bakersfield. His father was a sharecropper in Arkansas and a farm laborer in California. Buchanan told interviewers the fiction that his father was a fiddle-playing preacher, which was repeated in Guitar Player magazine but disputed by his older brother J.D. Buchanan told how his first musical memories were of racially mixed revival meetings he attended with his mother, Minnie. "Gospel," he recalled, "that's how I first got into black music". He in fact drew upon many disparate influences while learning to play the guitar (though he later claimed his aptitude derived from being "half-wolf"). He initially showed talent on steel guitar before switching to guitar in the early 1950s, and started his professional career at the age of 15, in Johnny Otis's rhythm and blues revue.

In 1958, Buchanan made his recording debut with Chicago's Chess Records at age 19, accompanying Dale Hawkins by playing the solo on "My Babe". Two years later, during a tour through Toronto, Buchanan left Dale Hawkins to play for Hawkins's cousin Ronnie Hawkins and tutor Ronnie's guitar player, Robbie Robertson. Buchanan plays bass on the Ronnie Hawkins single "Who Do You Love?". Buchanan soon returned to the United States, and members of the Ronnie Hawkins' group later gained fame as the roots rock group the Band. In the early 1960s, Buchanan often played as a sideman with various rock bands, and he played guitar in recording sessions with Freddy Cannon, Merle Kilgore, and others. At the end of the 1960s, with a growing family, Buchanan left the music industry to learn a trade and trained as a barber.

In 1961 he released "Mule Train Stomp", his first single for Swan, featuring rich guitar tones. Buchanan's 1962 recording with drummer Bobby Gregg, nicknamed "Potato Peeler," first introduced the trademark Buchanan "pinch" harmonic. An effort to cash in on the British Invasion caught Buchanan with the British Walkers. In the mid-1960s, Buchanan settled down in the Washington, D.C., area, playing for Danny Denver's band for many years while acquiring a reputation as "…one of the very finest rock guitarists around". The facts behind that claim are that in March 1968 a photographer friend, John Gossage gave Buchanan tickets to a concert by the Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Washington Hilton. "Buchanan was dismayed to find his own trademark sounds, like the wah-wah that he'd painstakingly produced with his hands and his Telecaster, created by electronic pedals. He could never attempt Hendrix's stage show, and this realization refocused him on his own quintessentially American roots-style guitar picking".

Gossage recalls how Buchanan was impressed by the Hendrix 1967 debut album Are You Experienced?, which was why he made sure to give Buchanan a ticket to the early show at the Hilton. Gossage went backstage to take photos and tried to convince Hendrix to go and see Buchanan at the Silver Dollar that night after the show, but Hendrix seemed more interested in hanging out with the young lady who was backstage with him. Hendrix never showed up at the Silver Dollar, but Gossage did talk to Buchanan about seeing the Hilton show. That same night (as the Hilton show) Buchanan played several Hendrix numbers and "from that point on, had nothing but good things to say about Hendrix". He later released recordings of the Hendrix composition "If 6 Was 9" and the Hendrix hit "Hey Joe". In the early 1970s he performed in the Washington, D.C.–Maryland–Virginia area with the Danny Denver Band, which had a following in the area. Buchanan was also popular as a solo act in the D.C. area at this time.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.