Roy Buchanan: American Axe

The first time I ever even heard the name Roy Buchanan was years ago when I was a young pup - I stayed up late and caught a broadcast of Roy Buchanan on the local PBS network. This wasn't the legendary "Greatest Unknown Guitarist in the World" piece, but appeared to be Roy and his band on a soundstage somewhere. At the time, I had just begun playing electric guitar and my tastes ran in the direction of the Allman Brothers Band, Eric Clapton and The Band - I was into the Blues, heavily into the Blues. I would read and watch anything that I could find having to do with guitars and guitarists (which was pretty slim pickings in those days before cable networks). Well, what I saw that night totally blew my mind!!!! Not only was RB technically amazing, but he played with such passion that I became a die-hard fan on the spot.Fast forward a few years to when I learned that RB had passed away. As I said - I was a fan and had been soaking up everything I could about guitars and guitarists, yet I had read very little about RB in all those years. I bought the albums, but very rarely found anything written about the man - and when I did read anything about him, it usually concerned his technique or was a music review. Like others, I often wondered why a player of Roy Buchanan's immense talent never made it big. One of the things that always frustrated me was that Roy Buchanan's studio recordings never seemed to capture the fire and excitement of his live performances. Now I think I know why. (For that lesson alone - the truth about the recording business and how artists are "handled" - this book should be required reading for any budding guitarist who dreams of someday signing a recording contract.) In any event, when I learned that RB had died, my reaction was: "what a sad, sad day and what a tragic loss."Now, thanks to Mr. Carson - I finally feel like I have the beginnings of an understanding regarding this amazing musician - not just the facts of his life, but the influences and, yes, even the demons, that contributed to forming the man and, to a certain extent, the legend. Carson is obviously a fan, but, in my humble opinion, he didn't let that cloud his judgement - there's no slant here one way or the other. To the contrary, Carson does a great job of telling the story of a shy, (sometimes) reserved man who just happened to have perfect pitch, love music, and who worked his ass off to become an expert at what he loved: playing the guitar. RB's life is portrayed by one who obviously studied and mastered his subject matter, and then just told the story - and told it well - warts and all.If this was just another book about a rock star (tough youth, toured forever, made it big, dies tragically) this book would probably be worthy of a couple of stars. However, as another reviewer said, Carson's book is more than just a biography of a rock musician - it is the story of a life. As such, it reveals much of what makes being human a sometimes comic and sometimes tragic experience - in short, it reveals much about what we all have in common as humans making our way in life. Along the way, Carson also gives us a rich glimpse into life at those times, into what it is to be a musician who gigs to pay the bills and feed the kids (and the temptations and dangers inherent in that lifestyle), and into the harsh realisms of the world of rock n'roll. There is a lot of material here, and also some valuable lessons. I have read many biographies and auto-biographies about many, many people - including many guitarists and rock musicians. Roy Buchanan: American Axe is, by far, one of the best I have ever read! I have no reservations in giving this book five stars - I just wish I could give it more.

Being a long time fan of Roy's I just had to read this at some point and just finished it tonight. Many rock biographies are short on facts and poorly researched and padded out with authorial BS, but not this one. I found this to be well written and thoroughly researched. I was amazed by all the detail about Roy's early gigs and bands. The author managed to interview apparently everyone still alive that knew Roy with the exception of his wife, Judy. He mentions in the introduction that she didn't cooperate with the writing of the book and that is too bad. Roy was married to her for a long time and they had six kids together. The one biographical gap in the book concerns his home life with Judy and the kids and that is too bad. But the author does a great job with the rest of Roy's life.If you are interested in this book you must be familiar with at least some of Roy's recordings. While reading this I looked on youtube for some videos to watch. What I found was the old PBS documentary, The World's Greatest Unknown Guitarist. I saw this back when it came out and have looked for it on Amazon for years. Someone posted the show in three parts on youtube. Pretty poor video quality but what a great show and an excellent compliment to this book. We are all familiar with Roy's exciting lead style, the speed and intensity and the finger gymnastics, but there are a few samples in this show that really show the depth of Roy. There is a scene of him noodling in his parents' yard this really shows his imagination. There is a scene where he plays with Mundel Lowe's band with Mundel sitting about two feet away while Roy plays a beautiful piece in Mundel's style. There's also a jam with Merle Haggard where Roy pays tribute to Roy Nichols, Merle's longtime sideman and important country guitarist. These videos give some nice context to some comments in the book. Several people say there how the best they heard Roy play was just sitting around playing to himself. Another good example is the long solo jam on the Sweet Dreams anthology. It is the last song on disc two. Very nice.There have been times in Roy's recordings where he would seem to be going along nicely and then explode into some virtuoso thing that in context seemed inappropriate. Just a feeling and my opinion. I always thought this was due to poor taste on Roy's part but after reading this book I now believe it was just Roy, the people pleaser, giving the listeners what he thought they wanted: speed and flash. And truly a lot of his fans come for that. But a little research shows that Roy was much more than that. I thank the author of this book for a great job and helping me to understand Roy better.

‘I want to be the best guitar player in the world’, says Leroy Buchanan, at the age of of 16, already well on the way to fulfilling this dream. And, although it’s almost sacrilegious to rank anyone above Jimi Hendrix, in my opinion he does just that.This is a terrific book. It does exactly what a rock biography should do: it tells us about Roy’s life, about his development as a musician, about him as a person (a pretty weird guy, but a musical genius); it tells us how his albums came into being, and why they never quite captured the brilliance of his live shows, the best of which were always in small venues, where Roy fed off the atmosphere and the reaction of his fans.Carson writes well. My only complaint about this edition is a relatively minor one, concerning the printing rather than the writing; the type is too small and there are too many words crammed onto each page. I suppose it keeps the cost down.

Bought for my husband who has only just started reading it. He is a fan of Roy Buchanan, so he will love it I'm sure.

Good book. Well worth a read.