Close As You Get

Though Gary Moore established his reputation as a master of hard-rock guitar in the late-‘70s, with a short, influential stint in Thin Lizzy and then with a series of explosive showcase albums in the ‘80s (1982’s Corridors of Power, 1983’s Victims of the Future), it was 1990’s Still Got the Blues that shifted the guitar legend onto the path that he comfortably explores to this day. Close As You Get is the sound of the blues filtered through the hands and mind of an expert innovator whose love for Sonny Boy Williamson (covered here with “Eyesight to the Blind” and “Checkin’ Up On My Baby”) is wedded to his obsession with the electric blues of Peter Green and Jimi Hendrix. But while Moore can light up the sky with whiplash guitars runs, at heart he’s a man of strategy, leaving space, picking his spots for maximum drama as the slowly percolating “I Had a Dream” chillingly shows. As a bonus for Moore fans, the album closes with his first foray into acoustic blues with a cover of Son House’s “Sundown.”