Leroy Buchanan was born in Ozark, Arkansas, and was raised there and in Pixley, California, a farming area between Visalia and Bakersfield.

[4] Buchanan told interviewers the fiction that his father was a fiddle-playing preacher,[5] which was repeated in Guitar Player magazine but disputed by his older brother J.D.

In the mid-1960s, Buchanan settled down in the Washington, D.C., area, playing for Danny Denver's band for many years while acquiring a reputation as "...one of the very finest rock guitarists around.

"[11] The facts behind that claim are that in March 1968 a photographer friend, John Gossage gave Buchanan tickets to a concert by the Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Washington Hilton.

"Buchanan was dismayed to find his own trademark sounds, like the wah-wah that he'd painstakingly produced with his hands and his Telecaster, created by electronic pedals.

He could never attempt Hendrix's stage show, and this realization refocused him on his own quintessentially American roots-style guitar picking.

Entitled Introducing Roy Buchanan, and sometimes mistakenly called The Best Unknown Guitarist in the World, it earned a record deal with Polydor Records and praise from John Lennon and Merle Haggard, besides an alleged invitation to join the Rolling Stones which he turned down and which gave him the nickname "the man who turned the Stones down".

According to his agent and others, Buchanan was doing well, having gained control of his drinking habit and playing again, when he was arrested for public intoxication after a domestic dispute.

He himself said that, while enrolled in 1969 in a school to learn to be a hairdresser, he ran after a guy walking down the street with that guitar, and bought him a purple Telecaster to trade.

Buchanan also owned a Butterscotch Blonde 1952 Fender Telecaster that eventually wound up in the possession of Wishbone Ash guitarist Andy Powell.

[6][20] To achieve his desired distorted sounds, Buchanan at one point used a razor blade to slit the paper cones of the speakers in his amp, an approach also employed by the Kinks' Dave Davies and others.

"[6] Buchanan could play harmonics at will, and could mute individual strings with free right-hand fingers while picking or pinching others.

Buchanan has influenced many guitarists, including Robbie Robertson, Gary Moore,[25] Danny Gatton, Arlen Roth, Jeff Beck, David Gilmour,[26] Jerry Garcia, Mick Ronson, Nils Lofgren, Jim Campilongo, and Steve Kimock;[27] Beck dedicated his version of "Cause We've Ended As Lovers" from Blow by Blow to him.

[28] His work is said to "stretch the limits of the electric guitar,"[16] and he is praised for "his subtlety of tone and the breadth of his knowledge, from the blackest of blues to moaning R&B and clean, concise, bone-deep rock 'n' roll.

"[29] In 2004, Guitar Player listed his version of "Sweet Dreams," from his debut album on Polydor, Roy Buchanan, as having one of the "50 Greatest Tones of All Time.