Once again working with producer/songwriter
Tom Hambridge
-- the bluesman's main collaborator since 2008's
Skin Deep
--
Buddy Guy
serves up a straight-ahead platter with
Born to Play Guitar
, his 28th studio album. Many of
Guy
's latter-day records loosely follow a theme, but
is pretty direct: just a collection of songs designed to showcase
Buddy
's oversized Stratocaster. Which isn't to say there's either a lack of variety or pro forma songwriting here.
Hambridge
cleverly colors
with a few bold, unexpected flourishes: the sweeps of sweet strings that accentuate "(Baby) You've Got What It Takes," a duet with
Joss Stone
that lightly recalls
Etta James
'
Chess
Records work; the big, blaring horns of "Thick Like Mississippi Mud" that moves that track out of the Delta and into an urban setting; the acoustic "Come Back Muddy" which performs that trick in reverse, pushing Chicago blues back down south. Elsewhere,
Van Morrison
contributes a moving tribute to
B.B. King
in "Flesh and Bone," a heartfelt ballad that doesn't quite fit with the rest of the record because it's about song, not feel -- a nice anomaly on a record whose greater concern is juke joint boogie.
delivers on this front quite ably, particularly when he's paired with fellow blues lifer
Kim Wilson
(as he is on "Too Late" and "Kiss Me Quick") or when
Billy Gibbons
slithers out of the Texas hills to lay down the heavy stomp of "Wear You Out," and while there are no surprises on these duets, nor on the proudly traditional Chicago blues of "Born to Play Guitar," "Back Up Mama," and "Whiskey, Beer & Wine," there is still pleasure in hearing a master tear into his beloved music. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine