BUDDY GUY & JUNIOR WELLS

Buddy Guy & Junior Wells Play The Blues (Expanded & Remastered)

This title is no longer available from Rhino Handmade.

However, numbered copies from the original edition may be available at select retailers.

An individually numbered, limited edition of 2500 copies from Rhino Handmade.

Legend has it that Junior Wells and Buddy Guy first met in 1958, when recent Chicago transplant Guy beat Wells in a Battle Of The Blues competition, even though Wells was the established player on the Windy City scene. The two played together at the 1967 Newport Folk Festival and opened for The Rolling Stones on their 1970 tour. That tour was the catalyst for the recordings on this album, originally released in 1972.

When the Stones played Paris, Guy-Wells disciple Eric Clapton came over for a visit, joining Guy onstage for a few numbers. Backstage, Clapton suggested to Atlantic's Ahmet Ertegun that he sign the two bluesmen. Ahmet agreed if Clapton agreed to produce the record. The deal was struck, and sessions got underway at Criteria Studio in Miami. Unfortunately the album took two years to be released, during which time some of the post-Woodstock blues buzz had subsided.

Although the Guy-Wells partnership was vital well into the '80s, Guy enjoyed his greatest commercial successes after the partnership ended, winning five Grammys -- beginning with 1991's Damn Right, I've Got The Blues -- and a record 21 W.C. Handy Blues Awards. Wells died in 1998.

This two-disc Rhino Handmade edition of Play The Blues presents the original 1972 Atco album in its remastered entirety, plus 13 previously unreleased tracks from the Clapton-produced sessions. New liner notes and track-by-track commentary by Mark Humphrey.

Buddy Guy & Junior Wells Play The Blues is available as an individually numbered limited edition of 2,500 copies.

Selection # 7894