Buddy Guy & Junior Wells

★★★★ Drinkin’ TNT ’N’ Smokin’ Dynamite DEMON. LP

One of the greatest live recordings of the 1970s.

Buddy and Junior Wells transfixed the Montreux Jazz Festival crowd in 1974 with an explosive set of signature tunes and working band covers. Their band on the night was top notch too, led by Bill Wyman, then still bassist in The Rolling Stones, whom Guy and Wells had just finished touring with, plus Pinetop Perkins on piano, former CSNY drummer Dallas Taylor and guitarist Terry Taylor. Wyman recorded the performance; the result was a tremendous meshing of the pair’s piercing guitar and exuberant blues harp. Wells’s Messing With The Kid and Hoodoo Man Blues bring down the house with gritty and raw renditions; Guy’s own Ten Years Ago, by contrast, is mournful and wailing. The closer, a roarin’ take on Sonny Boy Williamson’s My Younger Days, leaves you wanting more.