Editor’s Note: Here at No Depression there’s too much great roots music in a year for us to cover it all. So in December, when new releases slow down, we ask writers to review some of the best albums we missed throughout the year in an on-going series called What We Missed.
It’s been a busy year for Buddy Guy.
The legend spent much of the summer with a packed schedule, touring North America. Shortly before that, he enjoyed a brief cameo in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, a blues-tinged horror flick that quickly became a defining film of 2025. In the midst of it all, though, the pioneering Chicago bluesman released his 20th studio album, Ain’t Done With The Blues.
The 18-track (Grammy-nominated) collection arrived just a day before the vocalist and guitar virtuoso celebrated his 89th birthday. As the title – and his stacked calendar – implies, Guy isn’t done with the blues. Not even close.
As the album thrums awake — steel strings hum like a life force, pulsing, heaving, nearly respiring— something far greater than a mere blues oeuvre is unleashed. Ain’t Done With The Blues is a chronicle of the artist’s past, present, and future, all of it evidence of a life lived for and through the blues.
