Jam of the Day: "That's What I Am Here For," Roy Buchanan (1973)
Soulful blues rock by one of the genre's most overlooked guitarists.
The first time I heard Roy Buchanan was outside at the Grand Bazaar market in the Upper West Side. His Fender Telecaster (nicknamed “Nancy”) cried masterfully from a vintage stereo set up in a booth selling records.
It was sunny but near freezing. I watched the vendor — a hulking man with a slight hunchback and a thick wool blanket wrapped around his head like a cantankerous Sith Lord — blow smoke on a steaming cup of joe.
I was intimidated. But I was also desperately curious, so I moseyed over to the turntable and asked the big man what was playing. Without a word, he pulled out an empty record sleeve and flipped it onto a pile of worn jazz albums, like a burger on the griddle.
“I could do $20,” he grunted.
“$15?”
“Fine.”
Worried I’d regret my impulsive purchase, I put the record on as soon as I got home. I sat back on the couch and admired the blocky yellow font and the enchanting 70s aesthetic of Buchanan’s cover photo, turtlenecked and dialed into his instrument.
A fuzzy Zeppelinesque guitar tone kicks off the album but evolves into a bone-clean blues rock song, paving the way for a pristine and soulful cover of Jimi Hendrix’s classic “Hey Joe,” which starts moody but eventually soars into oblivion, another dimension, a colorless, soundless void overtaken only by Buchanan’s chaotic shredding.
“Please Don’t Turn Me Away” — another standout track — sounds less like a Buchanan original than an American Songbook classic. Lively and gentle piano arrangements, doo-wop backing vocals and fiery bursts of demented Hendrix-adjacent fretboard pulverization. It’s the type of tune that can lift the spirits and simultaneously plunge you deep into a well of heartbreak.
Roy Buchanan remains one of the most tragically overlooked guitarists of the blue rock movement. He inspired icons like Jeff Beck and Robbie Robertson, and was lauded by Eric Clapton, John Lennon, and Merle Haggard. And, as I learn more, his records seem to accumulate on my shelf. Like 1974’s In The Beginning, which features Buchanan’s powerful instrumental hit “Wayfaring Stranger.”
But while fusing into my couch on that cold day, allowing the music to introduce itself to my unknowing ears one track at a time, it became abundantly clear that I would never regret this purchase.