Lonnie McIntosh (July 18, 1941 – April 21, 2016), known as Lonnie Mack, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was an influential trailblazer of blues rock music and rock guitar soloing.
Mack emerged in 1963 with his breakthrough LP, The Wham of that Memphis Man. It earned him lasting renown as both a blue-eyed soul singer and a lead guitar innovator. In the album’s instrumental tracks, Mack added “edgy, aggressive, loud, and fast” melodies and runs to the predominant chords-and-riffs pattern of early rock guitar. These tracks raised the bar for rock guitar proficiency and helped launch the electric guitar to the top of soloing instruments in rock. They also became prototypes for the lead guitar styles of blues rock and Southern rock.
Shortly after the album’s release, however, the massively popular “British Invasion” hit American shores, and Mack’s recording career “withered on the vine”.[9] He regularly toured small venues until 1968, when Rolling Stone magazine rediscovered him, and Elektra Records signed him to a three-album contract. He was soon performing in major venues, but his multi-genre Elektra albums downplayed his lead guitar and blues rock appeal and record sales were modest. Mack left Elektra in 1971. For the next fourteen years he was a low-profile multi-genre recording artist, roadhouse performer, sideman, and music-venue proprietor.
In 1985, Mack resurfaced with a successful blues rock LP, Strike Like Lightning, a promotional tour featuring celebrity guitarist sit-ins, and a Carnegie Hall concert with Roy Buchanan and Albert Collins. In 1986, he went on “The Great American Guitar Assault Tour” with Buchanan and Dickey Betts. In 1990, he released another well-received blues rock album, Lonnie Mack Live! Attack of the Killer V, then retired from recording. He continued to perform, mostly in small venues, until 2004.
Mack died from “natural causes” on April 21, 2016 (age 74) at a hospital near his log-cabin home in rural Tennessee. In the media, his death was overshadowed by that of rock superstar Prince, who died on the same day. Mack was buried in Aurora, Indiana.(wikipedia)
And here´s his legendary album feat. Stevie Ray Vaughan:
Co-produced by Stevie Ray Vaughn, this was Lonnie’s ticket back to the show after a few years on the sidelines. To say it was an inspired date would be putting it mildly. With his batteries recharged, Mack was in peak form, playing and singing better than ever. A major highlight is an inspired duet between Stevie and Lonnie on “Wham (Double Whammy),” going toe to toe for several exciting choruses. (by Cub Koda)
Originally released in 1985, this is the celebrated comeback of legendary blues-rock guitar pioneer Mack, made all the more special for featuring production and guest appearances from Lonnie’s #1 disciple, Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Loads of high-energy guitar and soul-deep singing. (propermusic.com)
My favorite song on the album is the only song Stevie Ray has a vocal part in: “If You Have to Know.” What is bizarre about this song and track 2, “Satisfy Susie,” is the fact that they have very similar vocal lines. It is shocking how close they are. The guitars are drastically different as are the lyrics (obviously). I can’t say I really enjoy finding blatant similarities between songs on the same album. Apart from this, the album is great. “Double Whammy” is as it sounds, two blastin’ guitars. SRV fans will recognize this song as “Wham” as performed at El Mocambo or as an extra song to one of his CD releases. “Stop” is a pretty good slower blues song. I also enjoy “Strike Like Lightning” and “Long Way From Memphis.”
There are no real duds on this album. Great blues rock tracks that vary in scope and execution. Although I was not blown away by this album, it is a great addition to my blues collection. Lonnie Mack has a very smooth, southern, voice very similar to Gregg Allman. This is very apparent on “Long Way From Memphis.” Not a bad album to listen to if you enjoy SRV or Lonnie Mack. (by Rocky Sullivan)
This is an excellent album of blues/rock. Very fun and top notch playing.Oreo Cookie Blues is one of the best accoustic blues available. (by Mlicinio)
Personnel:
Tim Drummond (bass)
Lonnie Mack (guitar, vocals)
Dennis O’Neal (drums)
Stan Szelest (keyboards)
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Gene Lawson (drums on 04. + 06.)
Bill McIntosh (guitar on 03., 04., slide guitar on 10.)
Stevie Ray Vaughan (guitar on 01., 02., 05., 08, national steel guitar on 10.)
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The Croquettes (background vocals on 02.):
Lisa Gilkyson – Gwen Newsome – Karen Kraft
Tracklist:
01. Hound Dog Man (Drummond) 4.05
02. Satisfy Susie (Mack/Drummond) 4.31
03. Stop (Mack) 5.23
04. Long Way From Memphis (Mack/Drummond/Jennings) 3.21
05. Double Whammy (Mack) 3.36
06. Strike Like Lightning (Mack/Vaughan/Drummond/Jennings) 3.39
07. Falling Back In Love With You (Mack) 4.57
08. If You Have To Know (Mack/Drummond/Jennings) 4.30
09. You Ain’t Got Me (Mack) 2.39
10. Oreo Cookie Blues (Mack/Wilkerson) 4.52
Dana Gillespie (born Richenda Antoinette de Winterstein Gillespie, 30 March 1949) is an English actress, singer and songwriter. Originally performing and recording in her teens, over the years Gillespie has been involved in the recording of over 45 albums and appeared in stage productions, such as Jesus Christ Superstar, and several films. Her musical output has progressed from teen pop and folk in the early part of her career, to rock in the 1970s and, more latterly, the blues.
More from Dana Gillespie:
The United Jazz + Rock Ensemble (abbr. “United” or “UJRE”) developed from a group of jazz musicians that was formed for a 1974 to 1975 television show of Süddeutscher Rundfunk (South German Broadcasting). Almost all future members of “United” were present from the beginning.
Tracklist:
Christopher Anton Rea (born 4 March 1951) is an English rock and blues singer-songwriter and guitarist from Middlesbrough, England. He is of Italian and Irish descent. He is known for his distinctive, husky singing and slide guitar playing, with the Guinness Rockopedia describing him as a “gravel-voiced guitar stalwart”. After learning to play the guitar relatively late, a short burst of local band activity led to his launching a solo career in 1978.
Leroy “Roy” Buchanan (September 23, 1939 – August 14, 1988) was an American guitarist and blues musician. A pioneer of the Telecaster sound, Buchanan worked as a sideman and as a solo artist, with two gold albums early in his caree] and two later solo albums that made it to the Billboard chart. He never achieved stardom, but is considered a highly influential guitar player. Guitar Player praised him as having one of the “50 Greatest Tones of All Time.” He appeared on the PBS music program Austin City Limits in 1977 (season 2).
Russell Glyn Ballard (born 31 October 1945) is an English singer, songwriter and musician.
Robert Anthony Plant CBE (born 20 August 1948) is an English singer, songwriter and musician, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band Led Zeppelin.
A powerful and wide vocal range (particularly evident in his high-registered vocals) has given Plant a successful singing career spanning over 50 years. In 2008, Rolling Stone editors ranked him number 15 on their list of the 100 best singers of all time. In 2011, Rolling Stone readers ranked Plant the greatest of all lead singers. In 2006, Hit Parader magazine named Plant the “Greatest Metal Vocalist of All Time”. In 2009, Plant was voted “the greatest voice in rock” in a poll conducted by Planet Rock.
Tracklist:
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner CBE (born 2 October 1951), known as Sting, is an English musician and actor. He was the principal songwriter, lead singer, and bassist for the new wave rock band the Police from 1977 to 1984, and launched a solo career in 1985. He has included elements of rock, jazz, reggae, classical, new-age and worldbeat in his music.
anxieties, which had peaked in the 1980s) proved more popular.
all, rely on musicians who, at that stage, were revivalists just developing their own style, and then had them jam on mock-jazz grooves — or, in the case of Branford Marsalis, layer soprano sax lines on top of pop songs. This, however, is just the beginning of the pretensions layered throughout The Dream of the Blue Turtles. Only twice does he delve into straightforward love songs — the lovely measured “Consider Me Gone” and the mournful closer, “Fortress Around Your Heart” — preferring to consider love in the abstract (“If You Love Somebody Set Them Free,” one of his greatest solo singles, and the childish, faux-reggae singalong “Love Is the Seventh Wave”), write about children in war and in coal mines, revive a Police tune about heroin, ponder whether “Russians love their children too,” and wander the streets of New Orleans as the vampire Lestat. This is a serious-minded album, but it’s undercut by its very approach — the glossy fusion that coats the entire album, the occasional grabs at worldbeat, and studious lyrics seem less pretentious largely because they’re overshadowed by such bewilderingly showy moves as adapting Prokofiev for “Russians” and calling upon Anne Rice for inspiration. And that’s the problem with the record: with every measure, every verse, Sting cries out for the respect of a composer, not a pop star, and it gets to be a little overwhelming when taken as a whole. As a handful of individual cuts — “Fortress,” “Consider Me Gone,” “If You Love Somebody,” “Children’s Crusade” — he proves that he’s subtler and craftier than his peers, but only when he reins in his desire to show the class how much he’s learned. (by Stephen Thomas Erlewine)
This 1983 studio date, titled Crystal Bells here yet previously released under other titles, features trumpet Chet Baker performing within a trio setting with the Belgian duo of guitarist Philip Catherine and bassist Jean-Louis Rassinfosse. Although famously known as an intuitive musician who played by ear, by the ’80s Baker’s improvisation had coalesced into a beautifully logical, root harmony-based style in which one can discern the exact progressions of any given tune simply by listening to him. Here, his lines connect, turn by turn, melody upon melody like a pastel jigsaw puzzle forming before your eyes. Subsequently, Baker thrived in the company of the like-minded Belgians, whose bop-inflected technical prowess on their instruments was also matched by their deft sense for melodicism and sympathetic group interplay. As accompanists alone, they’re superb cohorts for the jazz legend, hanging their ears on each of his notes, outlining the harmonies behind him, and buoying his soft, lyrical phrases. There are also subtle stylistic juxtapositions within the trio with Catherine’s choice of electric, amplified guitar allowing for the occasional foray into country twang, or ambient, fusion-infused colorations. Similarly, though, Rassinfosse’s velvety double-bass lines reveal the influence of the impressionistic tone of Ron Carter, and he never fails to imply a clipped rhythmic pulse; a necessary skill in the drummerless setting Baker often favored in his later years. Ultimately, Crystal Bells is an absolutely magical session with inspired performances that still ring true so many years after Baker’s passing. (by Matt Collar)
I guess, every serious fan ofRock & Jazz music should know this names:
ManyFantasticColors 