Buddy Guy: Bring 'Em In : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Released in the afterglow of his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the new collection by sixty-nine-year-old Chicago-blues powerhouse Buddy Guy is a readily digestible bag of familiar covers starring marquee guests. There are some ill-advised tunes: Carlos Santana and his clunky cowbell make an overbaked "I Put a Spell on You" that would have Screamin' Jay Hawkins reaching for the coffin lid. "Lay Lady Lay," with Anthony Hamilton and Robert Randolph, sounds more like a Posturepedic mattress commercial than a come-hither jam. Otis Redding's "I've Got Dreams to Remember," featuring John Mayer, is both pleasant and utterly superfluous. The reward for all this? Guy's soulful, burnished "Somebody's Sleeping in My Bed"; the mournful horns adorning the Tracy Chapman duet "Ain't No Sunshine"; and a stratospheric wah-wah solo on "Cut You Loose" that shows why Guy and Jimi Hendrix were kindred spirits.