Roy Buchanan biography

Roy Buchanan was one of America's most soulful masters of the electric guitar. Even posthumously, he commands the ardent respect of his fellow guitarists and a devoted army of fans. The Buchanan sound is totally unique: heartbreaking, searing solos, trademark shimmering tone, and a mixture of snarls, wails and squeals that mark him as a wizard of the instrument. He was a pioneer in the use of controlled harmonics, and although this technique has been used by rock's greatest guitarists, especially Jeff Beck, Robbie Robertson and ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, all acknowledge Buchanan as the master. 

Eric Clapton saw Buchanan perform once and proclaimed him "...the best in the world." Jeff Beck said that his jaw "dropped" the first time he saw Buchanan play. Even jazz players like Les Paul, Charlie Byrd, Barney Kessell, and Mundell Lowe were in awe of Roy Buchanan's talents. 

Ellwood Brown, a friend of Roy's, and his producer on Malaguena recalls;

Roy frequently stated that the reason for the high action was to get a cleaner sound. In all probability, the guitars that he had access to early in his career could have suffered from warped necks or just plain poor quality and would have fret 'buzz.' The cure would be to raise the action a little, but sometimes that wasn't enough, so you just had to live with it. Because of the unusual limberness of his joints, he would be able to deal with a higher action than someone with normal limitations. He was what we call 'double-jointed' and could touch his wrist with his thumb either forward or backward. So, to go on, he soon discovered a couple of things: a clean sound, better sustain, and curiously enough, with a raised action and nut, the string is actually easier to bend than with low action; less friction with the fret board, for one thing. Of course, this led to the necessity of larger Gibson type frets. I'm sure, knowing Roy's sense of humor, that it must have tickled him to watch someone else try to play his instrument at a jam session or while sitting in.

Later in life, he did lower the action considerably with no apparent change in the quality of his technique. He said his hands just couldn't take the all out playing at concerts for three hours or more. When he was a band member, he didn't have to put out 60 seconds of every minute. Most of the time he was playing rhythm or fills, but later in life, on tour, fans expected something every second and even Roy couldn't turn back the biological clock. Hence, the lighter gauge strings he used in the later years. This is one of those questions that can be answered to a guitar player and to someone totally unfamiliar with the instrument--the second is much more difficult.

His use of a basic Fender Telecaster, using high harmonic squeals in place of feedback and distortion, was part and parcel of rock guitar's vocabulary by the early '70s, He was a shy, introverted, enigmatic man who avoided the spotlight as much as he could. He was a journeyman genius, and he is still too little known.

Roy Buchanan was born Leroy Buchanan in Ozark, Franklin County, Arkansas on September 23, 1939, and grew up listening to country music, jazz, blues and gospel. The Buchanan's were of Scottish origin, and seemed to live up to that Scottish work ethic of living hard by your hands. Roys father, Bill Buchanan, was a sharecropper during the Great Depression. It was this infamous period in American history, which forced the young family to move away from their Arkansas home, in 1941, to a new dawn in California. At this point, Bill Buchanan and his wife Minnie had three children; J.D. Buchanan (born in 1926), Betty Buchanan (1933), Leroy Buchanan (1939) (Roy's younger sister Linda Joan Buchanan was born later, in 1944). Roy Buchanan's musical career began in the tiny town of Pixley, California, which is a village in San Joaquin Valley, 50 miles to the north of Bakersfield, Ca. His father was a farmer (and, Roy would later claim, a Pentecostal preacher - although Roy's brother J.D. said of Bill ""If my father ever went into a church, the roof’d fall in on him!").", and Roy's first musical memories were of racially-mixed revival meetings his family would attend.

"Gospel," he recalls, "that's how I first got into black music".

Late night R & B radio shows also helped whet his appetite for blues-based music. But the music played by the folks in Pixley was country, so when the 9 year-old Roy first expressed interest in the guitar, his parents bought him a red Rickenbacker lapsteel, and sent him to the local steel guitar teacher, Mrs. Clara Louese Presher. Within weeks, he was picking out the Hit Parade favorites on steel guitar, spurred on by his teacher who, Roy remembers, "would cry every time I made a mistake". Here, Roy learnt the basics for his playing, although he never learned to read music - he always played by ear. Soon after, by 1952, Roy was getting to grips with playing standard guitar.By the age of 12, Roy had become sufficiently skillful as a picker to join his first band, the Waw Keen Valley Boys. In 1953, at the age of 13, Roy bought his first Fender Telecaster (for $120!).

"I liked the tone...it sounded a lot like steel guitar".

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