BLUES & RHYTHM (UK) #387, Dec 2024/Jan 2025
WILLIE BUCK AND THE DELMARK ALL-STARS: Live At Buddy Guy’s Legends
Delmark 882 (52:45) CD/ LP/ Digital
Jumping/ Kansas City/Tried To Work Something Out/ What We Were Talking About/ Let’s See If We Can Come Together/ Snow/ Willie Buck Talking/ Rock Me/ Walking And Swimming/ Hoochie Coochie Man
This is Willie Buck’s fourth album for Delmark and his first live set, recorded in August 2023 (when Willie was 86), and it’s good, no-nonsense old-school Chicago blues from start to finish. In other words, Delmark does it again…
Singer Willie (Crawford, from Houston, Mississippi) brings along his regular guitar player, Thaddeus Krolicki, and teams up with some musicians who also recorded with him on his previous set, 2019’s “Willie Buck Way”: Scott Dirks on harmonica, the great guitarist Billy Flynn, and Johnny Iguana, outstanding on piano. The rhythm section comprises Melvin Smith on bass and the late, somewhat legendary drummer (and occasional movie star), Willie “The Touch” Hayes – this was his last recording.
The All-Stars and Thaddeus set out their stall well on the opener, a fine old-fashioned swinging blues with echoes of Little Walter in the 50s for everyone to get their chops warmed up. Scott then puts down his harp and introduces Mr Willie Buck, Johnny Iguana leading on the piano on a down-home sounding ‘Kansas City’. It made me realise I’ve not heard new blues like this for quite a while…
The set continues in this vein – ‘Tried To Work Something Out’ is another fine blues with a 50s sound, hints of Jimmy Rogers and maybe The Aces, with the band extremely fine exponents of this now almost lost sound. ‘Let’s See’ leans more towards vintage Muddy Waters – excellent vocal, perfect slide guitar, strong chromatic harmonica, Iguana Spann-like, a perfect, tightly-controlled rhythm section, and less than five minutes running time. Then ‘Snow’ does it again, though it runs a minute or so longer and Scott downsizes his harp – maybe more late 50s/ early 60s Muddy styled. At the end, Scott mentions Willie’s “direct connection to Muddy Waters”, and Willie speaks a little about the book he’s writing about his life “out here in this blues field, from 1953 up until now”. It should be worth a read!
Willie Hayes’ drumming on ‘Rock Me’ has a lovely fluidity not often encountered these days. Muddy is the inspiration for ‘Walking And Swimming’ (a very fine ‘Rollin’ Stone’/ ‘Catfish Blues’ variant) and of course the closing ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ – the only number where Willie doesn’t quite match up to Muddy singing-wise (though he’s still better than many). It’s a minor criticism for a set I definitely recommend to all the blues lovers in the house.
Norman Darwen
