Roy Buchanan, headlining tomorrow at the Ambler Cabaret, is a true master of the Telecaster, a white man who plays the blues with such passion it's a wonder he doesn't set his ax on fire in every performance. Buchanan's patented sound emphasizes searing solos, a glistening tone, a full language of blues wails, snorts, squeals and snarls.
Long a "guitarist's guitar player," Buchanan has taught a thing or three to Jeff Beck, Z.Z. Top's Billy Gibbons and Robbie Robertson. Robertson watched Roy work from the bassman's slot, then replaced Roy as guitarist in Ronnie Hawkins' Hawks, which evolved into The Band.
So why isn't Buchanan a superstar? As a singer and composer, most of Buchanan's work through the years has proven only decent, hardly the match to his instrumental prowess. But I do think he's finally found his niche at the Chicago-based Alligator Records, where owner/producer Bruce Iglaurer has stressed the solid basics of his playing, and matched him up with strong guest vocalists such as Delbert McClinton (on the "Dancing on the Edge" LP) and now Johnny Sayles (for Roy's newest LP, "Hot Wires").
Form and content are brilliantly -and some might say tragically - matched in the artistry of Richard Lloyd, headlining Sunday night at Revival. A pioneer of the new wave, art punk and neo-psychedelic schools as founding member of the formative group Television, Lloyd has followed the course of many troubled heroes like Jimi Hendrix (whom Lloyd shadowed at close range as a teen) and Lou Reed. Essentially, he's fashioning his art from the wretched excesses of his life, with bleak lyric landscapes and startling, extended, ''strangled" guitar runs that personify a life ruled by booze and drugs.
