[.ca] Play the Blues

Chronique amazon.fr:
Classique du début des années soixante-dix (1972), ce disque révèle tout le talent et la complicité de ces deux figures légendaires du blues américain, Buddy Guy, guitariste influent, et Junior Wells, harpiste mythique. Leur amitié remonte à la fin des années cinquante, alors qu'ils enregistraient en tant que musiciens de sessions sur bon nombre de disques de blues de Chicago. Sorti sur ATCO, cet album contient dix titres au classicisme rare, de "Honeydrippin'" à "Old Fool" en passant par "I Don't Know", ce qui en fait un standard du genre. --Florent Mazzoleni

Excellent:
"Buddy Guy & Junior Wells Play The Blues" is one of the duo's very best albums. Two tracks are Junior Wells-less, recorded by Buddy Guy with the J. Geils Band; the remaining eight songs feature a star-studded backing band which includes pianist Dr. John on several tracks, and some guy named Eric someting. Capton, something like that. The song list is excellent, and so is the band, which sounds tight and supple, never threatening to overwhelm the two stars. There are none of the erratic vocal performances or rambling solos that sometimes plagued the duo's live shows (this album is a studio recording). Junior Wells sizzles, laying down some great vocal performances. Buddy Guy's solos are controlled and disciplined, yet strikingly effective in up-tempo and ballad situations, and saxist A.C. Reed provides some soulful fills and gritty solos. Among the highlights are a sizzling remake of T-Bone Walker's "T-Bone Shuffle", and a swinging "My Baby She Left Me". Guy does a fine "Bad Bad Whiskey" with an otherwise very discreet Eric Clapton playing slide guitar, and he is entirely credible in a grinding Otis Redding mode on the southern soul stomper "A Man Of Many Words", and the up-tempo "This Old Fool". Junior Wells does a great rendition of "Come On In This House" and his Vanguard classic "Messin' With The Kid" This CD certainly deserves its place among the other tremendous items in the Rhino/Atlantic R & B Masters series. Definitely recommended.

leave out two tracks:
Five stars for sure if not for tracks 7&10. So it gets four stars instead.

leave out two tracks:
Five stars for sure if not for tracks 7&10. So it gets four stars instead.

I'd give it five if...:
...there were more tracks like the first one: Buddy's 'Man of Many Words'. Sure, it's a re-write of Otis Redding's 'Hard to Handle', but it's a good re-write, and it has most of Derek and the Dominos,(Doctor John filling in on keyboards),-smoking- in support. Why not more Dominos?: Supposely there were many problems on these sessions, (mentioned, but not really explained in the notes), and they didn't even have enough material to release as an LP, until the two 'J. Geils Band' tracks were done quite a bit later.

• Man of Many Words
• My Baby She Left Me (She Left Me a Mule to Ride)
• Come on in This House/Have Mercy Baby
• T-Bone Shuffle
• Poor Man's Plea
• Messin' With the Kid
• This Old Fool
• I Don't Know
• Bad Bad Whiskey
• Honeydripper