There's little to say about the guitar performance--Guy on the acoustic guitar is, to say only the least, simple, singular and great. When you listen to him live or on disc, it is like taking a musicology course: Guy's fingers can channel whomever they want and show you how their style either emerges from or generates the others. So, on tracks such as Willie Dixon's "I Love the Life I Live" or John Lee Hooker's "Black Cat Blues," you hear Guy's playing edge backward to touch a Dixon bass line or a Hooker boogie lead. Of course, this playing is a way of reminding you of the origin of the music while pointing out that these three guys were all once on the Chess label and helped invent the urban blues of Chicago and Detroit.
It's Guy's voice, however, that really captures our attention on this disc. Who else sings with the range and quality that he does? Here, he sings like a bright new sling-blade--shiny, sharp and echoing in high falsetto on Skip James' "Hard Time on the Killing Floor," then blood-letting and mad-mean on "Crawlin' Kingsnake" and "Sally Mae." The producers don't mess around; there aren't any of Daniel Lanois' atmospherics to cushion the naked voice as on Dylan's Time Out of Mind. When you unplug the guitar, you'd better be able to sing because there ain't nothing to hide behind. Guy's strengths--his instrumental mastery and great voice--make Blues Singer worth listening to.
