Lonnie Mack

Lonnie Mack

Lonnie Mack (born Lonnie McIntosh, 18 July 1941, Harrison County, Indiana) is a rock and blues guitarist. He recorded as a featured artist until 1990, and as a session artist until 2000.

In 1963, Mack recorded several breakthrough guitar instrumentals, including "Memphis", "Wham!" and "Chicken-Pickin'". These tunes began the blues-rock guitar genre, which, in turn, revolutionized the role of lead guitar in rock & roll music. The earliest of these, "Memphis", has been described by music historian Richard T. Pinnell, Ph. D., as "a milestone of early rock guitar" and by Guitar World magazine as the premier "landmark" rock guitar recording of all time. In addition, music critic Jimmy Guterman has ranked the album containing these, and nine other early Mack tunes, 16th among the top 100 rock albums of all time. These recordings were a major influence upon a generation of guitarists, including Duane Allman and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Lonnie Mack is also known for the quality of his "blue-eyed soul" ballads, and the diversity of his repertoire, which included country, blues, rockabilly, southern rock, R&B, roots-rock and gospel. In the 1960s his recordings emphasized roots-rock, blues-rock and R&B; in the the 1970s, country; in the 1980s, rockabilly and blues-rock.

Mack recorded numerous singles and twelve original albums as a featured artist. He also recorded with The Doors, Stevie Ray Vaughan, James Brown, Freddie King, Ronnie Hawkins, Albert Collins, Roy Buchanan, Troy Seals, Dobie Gray and the sons of Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, among others. For much of his career he performed in roadhouses and honky-tonks. However, he also toured internationally and performed at major venues, including the Ryman Auditorium, the Fillmore East, the Fillmore West and Carnegie Hall. Now semi-retired, Lonnie Mack still occasionally performs with his trademark 1958 Gibson "Flying V" guitar.

Career

Lonnie Mack's music career began in the mid-1950s and followed a path marked by ground-breaking recordings, non-stop touring, historic session work, and periods of self-imposed exile from the music scene.

As a frontman, Mack has been described as perhaps rock’s first "virtuoso" guitarist and "the first rock guitar hero". Mack himself has never made such claims. Even if he had, several other early rock guitarists could claim at least a piece of that highly subjective "title", including Duane Eddy, Dick Dale, Tim Fuller (The Surfaris) and Bob Bogle (The Ventures).

Without question, however, Mack was the first guitarist to comprehensively merge blues guitar concepts into the rock mainstream, originating what was to become the enormously influential blues-rock guitar genre in 1963. Within five years, blues-rock had become the dominant rock guitar style, and Rolling Stone magazine had declared Mack to be "in a class by himself" as a rock guitarist.

Today, Mack is considered a pivotal figure in the history of rock & roll, for the significance of his accomplishments as a guitarist. Always a double-threat as a guitarist and singer, Mack's early vocal recordings also rank him among the finest of the "blue-eyed soul" singers.

Throughout his career, Mack's recordings reflected a unique, genre-stretching mix of black and white musical roots, which often made his music difficult to pigeon-hole stylistically. At times in his career, the music industry classified him as a "rockabilly" or "southern rock" artist, for his many recordings which blend roots-rock, country, rhythm & blues ("R&B") and blues styles. However, Mack also recorded entirely within single, distinct styles or genres, including country, roots-rock, classic R&B, soul, post-war urban blues and gospel music.

Ultimately, the industry came up with "roadhouse rock" to describe his music. It's a fitting label: Although Mack toured in both Europe and Japan, and headlined at many major venues at home and abroad, he spent the better part of his career playing in roadhouses and "honky-tonks", where the common thread was always rock & roll.

A roadhouse performer with a diverse repertoire might seem an unlikely profile for the founder of a powerful new musical style. Yet, that is exactly what Mack became in 1963, with his pioneering blues-rock guitar solos.

1941-1954: Childhood and early influences

A few weeks before Mack's birth, his family moved from the Appalachians of southeastern Kentucky to the small share-cropping farm in southern Indiana where Mack was born and raised. They brought with them a deep appreciation of traditional country music, which Mack's parents instilled in all of their children. Many of Mack's close relatives were active country and bluegrass pickers, and he has a childhood memory of Ralph Stanley visiting and playing at his home while he was still a child. Although there was no electricity on the farm, Mack's family had a primitive battery-powered radio, and it was their custom to listen to "The Grand Ole Opry" every Saturday evening. After the rest of the family had retired for the night, Mack would log some radio time of his own, listening to early R&B and gospel music.

Mack began playing as a small child, using an acoustic guitar he had traded for a bicycle. He recalls the day, when he was only seven years old, that some railroad workers near his home gave him a few coins to hear him play. He decided, then and there, that he wanted to play guitar for a living.

Mack has cited his mother as his earliest country guitar and singing influence, and an unrecorded blind guitarist from his youth, Ralph Trotto, as his earliest blues guitar influence. He has also cited '50s R&B vocalists Hank Ballard, Clyde McPhatter and Bobby "Blue" Bland, R&B guitarist Robert Ward, blues guitarist T-Bone Walker, country guitarist Merle Travis, country vocalist George Jones and '40s-era "big band" jazz music as significant early musical influences.

1954-1962: Pre-"Memphis" career

Mack quit school at the age of 13, after an altercation with a teacher. Big for his age, he got a fake ID and began playing the roadhouse circuit around Cincinnati while still in his mid-teens.

During the same period, Mack played guitar on two recordings, "Too Late to Cry" and "Hey, Baby", with his cousins, country-bluegrass artists Aubrey Holt and Harley Gabbard, who later performed and recorded as "The Boys From Indiana". Although one source shows the Sage label releasing these singles in March 1959, Mack recalls that the recording session took place in the mid-1950s. Also during the mid-to-late '50s, Mack waxed a cover of Clarence Poindexter's western swing classic, "Pistol-Packin' Mama" on the long-since-defunct Dobbs label. None of these early recordings are still available.

In 1958, Mack bought the seventh Gibson Flying V guitar ever made, which he used almost exclusively during his long career. Mack, who is of Scottish and Native American ancestry was attracted to the arrow-shaped instrument because of pride in his Indian heritage. By the late 1950s, Mack had put together a solid R&B band, and they were soon in great demand as performers throughout Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, playing R&B-driven rock & roll.

In the early 1960s, Mack shortened his name from "McIntosh" to "Mack" and named his band "The Twilighters", after the Cincinnati club where they had a steady gig. At the same time, Mack moonlighted as a session artist for Fraternity, a small record label in Cincinnati. There, he played guitar on a number of singles by local recording artists, including Cincinnati's premier female R&B trio, The Charmaines ("Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie-Woogie Flu" and "Goodbye Baby Goodbye" among others) and smooth-singing blues balladeer Max Falcon ("I'm So Satisfied" and "Carol Made Her Choice"). Much of Mack's session work from this period has been lost to the ages, but several Charmaines and Falcon cuts on which he played were recently reissued in the UK on a CD entitled Gigi and the Charmaines (Ace, 2006).

1963: Blues-Rock guitar is born: "Memphis", "Wham!" and "Chicken-Pickin'"

In late 1962, at the end of a Charmaines recording session, Mack was invited to use the few minutes remaining on the tape. Mack and his band immediately recorded one of his roadhouse mainstays, an infectious, largely improvised, bluesy instrumental with a rockabilly feel, using the harmonic foundation and general style of Chuck Berry's 1959 UK vocal hit, "Memphis, Tennessee". Although no one---least of all Mack himself---foresaw it at the time, the short time Mack spent recording "Memphis" was destined to become a watershed moment in the history of rock & roll.

By the time Mack's "Memphis" hit the airwaves in early 1963, he had already forgotten recording it and was engaged in a nation-wide performing tour with country singer/songwriter Troy Seals. Mack recalls that he did not know "Memphis" had been released until a friend tracked him down in Minneapolis, and told him to turn on his radio. By late June, "Memphis" had risen to #5 on Billboard's pop chart and #4 on Billboard's R&B chart. Up to that point, only two other rock guitar instrumentals had managed to crack Billboard's "Top 5", Duane Eddy's "Because They're Young" and The Ventures' "Walk, Don't Run", both released in 1960.

Mack's success with "Memphis" prompted singer Johnny Rivers to release his own hit version a few months later, incorporating elements of both Berry's and Mack's arrangements. After Mack's "Memphis", Berry modified his own performance of the tune to include Mack's faster tempo and longer guitar solos. Mack and Berry later became friends and touring partners.

Eager to exploit the momentum of "Memphis", Fraternity rushed Mack back into the studio with instructions to record another instrumental. Mack obliged with the self-penned "Wham!", a gospel-inspired guitar rave-up with a power chord intro, which reached #24 on Billboard's Pop chart in September, 1963. Mack used a Bigsby tremolo arm to achieve "distortion" effects on "Wham!", producing a sound so distinctive for its time that the tremolo arm became better-known as the "whammy bar". Later that year, Mack recorded yet another instrumental, "Chicken-Pickin'", arguably the most technically-challenging full-length guitar solo up to that point in the history of rock & roll.

According to music historian and guitar professor Richard T. Pinnell, Ph. D., Mack's "Memphis" was the first recorded rock guitar instrumental to use a five-note (pentatonic) blues scale as the basis for its melody, making it "one of the milestones of early rock and roll guitar". Although the term "blues-rock" had not yet been coined in 1963, "Memphis" is now recognized as the first hit recording of the blues-rock guitar genre. Only weeks after "Memphis" was released, Mack's "Wham!" became the second.

Some of the most prominent rock and country guitarists of the 20th century cut their musical eye-teeth on these tunes. In 1963, 17-year-old Duane Allman played "Memphis" over and over in his military academy dorm-room, stopping it, starting it, slowing it down to play along, until he had finally mastered it. As a teenager, Stevie Ray Vaughan did the same with "Wham!" until his father could stand it no longer, yanked it off the record-player and broke it to bits. It did not matter: Vaughan had already worn the grooves off of that record. Vaughan (who later recorded covers of both "Wham!" and "Chicken-Pickin'") simply bought another copy and started over. Eight-time Grammy-winning country instrumentalist, Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel, said: "Lonnie Mack was my guitar idol. When I picked up the guitar, the first thing I learned was "Memphis". I've always thought he was the greatest. He still is."

1963: "Blue-Eyed Soul" ballads

Mack's roadhouse performances had featured his guitar and R&B singing equally since the late 1950s, so, at his request, Fraternity also recorded a number of Mack vocals. No singer of Mack's era (with the exception of Ray Charles) could match his genre-spanning capacity to sing both country and soul ballads with equal conviction and authenticity. As it turned out, Mack ultimately became better-known for his guitar. However, today's casual listener, hearing all of his Fraternity recordings for the first time, would probably have a hard time guessing whether it was his guitar — or his singing — that had earned him greater renown.

Ultimately — for consistency and depth of feeling — the best blue-eyed soul is defined by Lonnie Mack's ballads and virtually everything The Righteous Brothers recorded. Lonnie Mack wailed a soul ballad as gutsily as any black gospel singer. The anguished inflections which stamped his best songs ("Why?", "She Don't Come Here Anymore" and "Where There's a Will") had a directness which would have been wholly embarrassing in the hands of almost any other white vocalist.

— music critic Bill Millar, 1983 essay "Blue-Eyed Soul: Colour Me Soul"

R&B radio stations throughout the South played Mack's gospel-fired soul ballad "Where There's a Will" in 1963, until he was invited to appear for a live radio interview with a prominent R&B disc jockey in Birmingham, Alabama. There, according to Mack, he was initially mistaken for Lonnie Mack's white manager, after which it became embarrassingly apparent that Mack was not the manager, but the singer. At that time (as Ray Charles had already discovered) the use of Black gospel music in secular recordings was still considered controversial, even for Black artists. It probably did not help that the singer turned out to be a grizzly-looking white man who spoke with a hillbilly accent. Mack recalls that the interview was scuttled on the spot.

After that, Mack recalls, there was a precipitous drop in the airplay time devoted to his vocal recordings on R&B radio stations. An unfortunate by-product of this experience was that Fraternity did not release Mack's most moving soul ballad, "Why?", as a single until 1968, and then only as the "B" side of a re-release of "Memphis". As recently as 2001, one music critic wrote:

"Why?", Mack wails, transforming it into a word of three syllables. "Why-y-y?" It's sweaty slow-dance stuff, with an organ intro, a stinging guitar solo, and, after the last emotional chorus, four simple notes on the guitar as a coda. There's no sadder, dustier, beerier song in all of Rock".

— Curtis, Lost Rock & Roll Masterpieces

Despite the de facto blacklisting of Mack's vocal recordings on R&B radio stations, his 1963 cover version of Jimmy Reed's "Baby, What's Wrong," managed to become a crossover pop hit, particularly in the Midwest, Fraternity's traditional distribution market.

Mack recorded fewer "pure" blues and soul ballads after the 1960s. However, 1983's Live at Coco's contains several bluesy vocals, including an outstanding version of T-Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday". In addition, a moving rendition of Mack's own soul ballad, "Stop", can be heard on 1985's Strike Like Lightning. In later years, Mack's vocal presentation in all but pure country recordings was recognizably that of a white singer strongly influenced by the blues.

1964: The Wham of that Memphis Man!

The Wham of That Memphis Man!
album cover

In late 1963, Mack returned to the studio to cut additional tunes, including instrumentals, vocals and ensemble pieces. Fraternity packaged several of these with Mack's 1963 singles into a 1964 album, The Wham of that Memphis Man!.

The Wham of that Memphis Man! was an album of stand-alone importance. Mack played the guitar instrumentals in an impressively rapid, fluid and precise style. The instrumentals featured both distortion (mild by later standards) and a distinctive 'watery' Magnatone amplifier sound which Mack had adopted from Robert Ward. Although decidedly bluesy, the instrumentals were also catchy, rhythmic and upbeat, in keeping with pop styles of the time. Mack's compelling vocals were strongly influenced by Black gospel music. All of the tunes were backed by the typical combination of bass guitar and drums, and many also featured keyboards and a Stax/Volt-style horn section. Several cuts included a top-notch R&B backup chorus, provided by The Charmaines. Mack himself was the force behind all of the arrangements.

The Wham of that Memphis Man! was a hit, despite the obscurity of the Fraternity label. In the wake of the album's success, Mack spent the next few years performing on tour.

Most of Mack's Fraternity recordings are not found on The Wham of that Memphis Man!. Many were released piecemeal over the years, while others gathered dust in a vault for decades. In 1999, Mack re-mastered original tapes of 39 Fraternity cuts from the early 1960s and released them on his own "Flying V" label as a 2-CD set entitled Direct Hits and Close Calls. This set remains available on Mack's website.

Significance of his groundbreaking guitar solos

The full significance of Mack's early guitar recordings was not immediately apparent. However, as blues-rock evolved into a distinct and recognizable genre in the late 1960s, and, from there, grew into a dominant force within rock, observers began to trace its historical and stylistic roots. In so doing, they found that all paths led back to Lonnie Mack.

Mack's 1963 instrumentals "Memphis", "Wham!" and "Chicken-Pickin'" are now recognized as the first recorded rock guitar solos built around a five-note blues scale. Once described as "T-Bone Walker meets Merle Travis", Mack's style was actually much more than a fortuitous mix of disparate genres. Mack's playing was both masterful and — by contemporary rock standards — radical. His solos featured impressive speed and dexterity, replete with "chicken picking" and "hybrid picking" techniques borrowed from bluegrass guitar, as well as powerful phrasing, power chord lead-ins and machine-gunned, whammy-fired climaxes. In addition, Mack played the whammy bar with his little finger while continuing to pluck the strings, to create an early form of "distortion", a hallmark of both blues-rock and many later rock guitar styles. Mack fused all of these elements with "driving, complicated rhythms and technical precision" to come up with a revolutionary new rock guitar style.

In the '50s, breakthrough rockabilly singers Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins were among the first to comprehensively deconstruct and reassemble the vocal components of popular black and white roots music styles into a new style which is instantly recognizable today as "classic" rock & roll singing. In 1963, Mack's breakthrough instrumentals did the same for rock guitar. Mack's style, now regarded as "classic" blues-rock guitar, became the template for the blues-rock genre and permanently transformed the electric guitar from an accompanist's instrument into a formidable lead voice in rock & roll. In July, 1980, seventeen years after "Memphis" was first released, the editors of Guitar World magazine ranked it the premier "Landmark" rock guitar recording of all time, ahead of full albums by rock guitar giants Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. In July 1990, fully twenty-seven years after "Memphis" was released, Guitar World re-ran the 1980 "Landmark" article, unchanged.

Mack's classic style is said to have influenced---directly or indirectly---every rock and country guitarist of the late 20th century. He was a major early influence on both Duane Allman and Stevie Ray Vaughan . According to the artists themselves, Mack also influenced the guitar-playing of Pete Townshend, Neil Young, Dickie Betts, Jim Weider, Dan Toler, Sandy Bull, Ray Benson, Rick Derringer, and Tinsley Ellis (interviews: http://www.mnblues.com/review/2005/tinsleyellis-intv-th.html and http://www.modernguitars.com/holland/archives/001120.html).

According to his peers, music critics and historians, Mack's impact upon rock guitar was profound:

("Memphis") was one of the milestones of early rock & roll guitar. [A] major characteristic of the solo in "Memphis" that is unique among early rock guitar lines is Mack's use of a pentatonic (five note) scale as the basis for a melody. The particular pentatonic scale he chose is often referred to as the "blues scale".

— Richard T. Pinnell, PhD, Guitar Player, May 1979, p40

[T]he way I look at it, we're just giving back to him what he did for all of us. [A] lot of producing is just being there, and with Lonnie, reminding him of his influence on myself and other guitar players. Most of us got a lot from him.

— Guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, Guitar World, Nov., 1985, p28

God bless the Beach Boys, but I was really gettin' tired of "Little Deuce Coupe" and all the beach songs, and "Louie, Louie" — which are all great songs, but I'm talkin' about guitar-playin'. And then, here come Lonnie Mack right down the middle of it all. God! What a breath of fresh air that was.

— Allman Brothers guitarist Dickie Betts,

[Lonnie Mack] is the first guitarist I know of to take elements of blues, country and earlier rock and bring them to what you could call a 'rock and roll' energy level. [P]lus, I think its safe to say that he brought more elements of blues into rock guitar than anyone before him. He was both a ground-breaker and a brilliant musician.

— Blues producer Bruce Iglauer,

In all, it is not an exaggeration to say that Lonnie Mack was well ahead of his time....His bluesy solos pre-dated the pioneering blues-rock guitar work of Jeff Beck... Eric Clapton... and Mike Bloomfield... by nearly two years. Considering that they are considered 'before their time', the chronological significance of Lonnie Mack for the world of rock guitar is that much more remarkable.

— Brown & Newquist, Legends of Rock Guitar, Hal Leonard Co., 1997, p25

[Mack's early work] was an aggressive, sophisticated, original and fully-realized sound, [all] developed by a kid from the sticks. It's questionable we'd have incandescent moments like Cream's [1968] rendition of "Crossroads" without Lonnie Mack's ground-breaking arrangements five years earlier.

— Sandmel, Guitar World, May, 1984, pp55-56

[Mack's] instrumentals and his solos are staggeringly fluid and self-assured. What most of today's guitarists are still trying to master, Lonnie Mack had all down pat way back in '63.

— Rolling Stone, 1 October 1970

Mack's own take on his early guitar work is simple and modest. He has described it as "a bridge between the standard country licks of the '50s and the screamin' kinda stuff" that began in the late '60s.

1964-1968: Transition period

Within a year after the release of Mack's first album, the public's musical tastes had shifted radically due to the initial, "pop", phase of the "British Invasion", led by The Beatles. However, by about the same time, the "folk music" movement in the US, and the popularity of Black musical forms in the UK, had triggered a massive awakening of interest in classic rural and urban blues among young whites of the baby boom generation. Soon, a handful of predominantly white blues bands rose to prominence, including John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in the UK and The Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the US. The appearance of blues-based rock groups followed, all featuring lead guitarists. These included The Yardbirds, and the 'power trios', Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, among others. By 1968, blues-rock was recognized as a distinct and powerful force within rock & roll on both sides of the Atlantic.

These developments were influential in leading to the rediscovery of Mack's pioneering blues-rock recordings of the early 1960s. Before that occurred, however, Fraternity loaned Mack to Cincinnati's premier record label, King Records, where Mack worked for a time as a recording-session artist. In 1965, Mack played rhythm guitar on at least four recordings by "The Bluesmaster", singer-guitarist Freddie King. In 1967, he played lead guitar on several recordings by "The Godfather of Soul", James Brown, including "Kansas City" and "Stone Fox".

Brown was so impressed with Mack's R&B guitar chops that he turned over the recording of "Stone Fox" to Mack. Brown accompanied Mack with some trademark grunts and shouts; beyond that, however, the original 1967 version of "Stone Fox" was essentially a Lonnie Mack R&B instrumental.

Some of Mack's session work for King during the '60s remains available on numerous Freddie King and James Brown compilation CD's.

Between 1967 and 1969, Mack played lead guitar on the Fraternity recordings of Albert Washington, a blind R&B singer whose artistry far outstripped his commercial success. Out-of-print for decades, some of these recordings were reissued in the UK on a CD entitled Albert Washington - Blues and Soul Man, with Lonnie Mack (Ace, 1999).

Mack neither sought nor received royalties for most of the session work he performed during his long career, and much of it is difficult to find or no longer available. He did some of it as a simple favor, and some (as in the case of The Charmaines) on a casual trade-of-services basis. A reference to Mack's album discography, including session work, is found at the end of this article.

1968: Re-discovery

In 1968, with the blues-rock movement approaching full force, Mack landed a multi-record contract with Los Angeles' Elektra Records, and relocated to the West Coast. The 23 November 1968 edition of the influential music journal, Rolling Stone, contained a major feature article on Mack, including a full, and highly complimentary ("As a rock guitarist, Lonnie Mack is in a class by himself") review of his 5-year old Fraternity album, and called upon Elektra to reissue it. Mack and his band found themselves in demand once again, and for the next few years they played all of the major rock venues, including Bill Graham's Fillmore East and Fillmore West.

In 1970, Elektra reissued The Wham of that Memphis Man! with the new title For Collectors Only, and two tunes not found on the original album. A 1 October 1970 follow-up review in Rolling Stone compared Mack's guitar work on For Collectors Only to "the best of [Eric] Clapton". The album proved to be a commercial success for a second time in six years.

The Wham of that Memphis Man/For Collectors Only remains Mack's most significant early album and now ranks as a rock classic. In 1992, music critic Jimmy Guterman ranked it No. 16 among the 100 all-time best rock albums in his book on the subject.It has been reissued many times under a variety of titles over the years. When it was reissued in 1987, Gregory Himes of The Washington Post wrote: "With so many roots-rock guitarists trying to imitate this same style, this album sounds surprisingly modern. Not many have done it this well, though."

1968-1971: The Elektra years

Mack recorded three new albums with Elektra, including Glad I'm in the Band and Whatever's Right, both released in 1969. These were eclectic collections of both country and soul ballads, Chicago-style blues, and a few updated versions of Mack's earlier rock/R&B hits. Both albums drew rave reviews. This, from a contemporary assessment of Glad:

Mack's taste and judgement are super-excellent. Every aspect of his guitar bears a direct relationship to the sound and meaning of the song. [H]is voice is strong without straining and of great range and personality. [I]f this isn't the best rock recording of the season, its the solidest.

— Rolling Stone, 3 May 1969, p28

Typical of these two albums were a couple of stellar back-to-back vocals on Whatever's Right. Mack sings Willie Dixon's "My Babe" in a soul style evocative of Wilson Pickett or Sam & Dave. Within seconds of the closing measure on that tune, Mack begins his vocal on "Things Have Gone To Pieces", a country tune in which Mack's inflections are reminiscent of the late Buck Owens. He was equally convincing in both roles. These tunes are preceded on the album by Mack's own composition, "Mt. Healthy Blues", a mesmerizing blues guitar instrumental.

In 1969, the vast stylistic range of these two albums was several steps ahead of the curve, representing a marketing dilemma which dogged Mack's producers and record labels for decades: How to position — and sell — an artist who could perform equally well in a bewildering variety of popular music genres (each with its own fan base) and insisted on recording in all of them? The problem was never fully resolved. Artistically, at least, Mack did not really see it as a problem. He considered country and blues to be "about the closest musics there are", the black and white branches of a single tree he called "earth music". Ultimately, Mack simply continued to play what he loved, sometimes favoring one style or genre over the rest, and at other times mixing them within individual albums or tunes.

While still under contract to Elektra, Mack made a well-chronicled contribution to The Doors' blockbuster 1970 album, Morrison Hotel. In the ensuing years, the 6 November 1969 recording session itself has become the fodder of urban legend.

What is known: Mack played bass guitar (an instrument he rarely played) on "Roadhouse Blues" and "Maggie M'Gill". Beyond that, some contend that Mack also played lead guitar on these (and other) tracks. Much of the speculation involves "Roadhouse Blues". Band-leader Jim Morrison's spoken voice is heard at the outset of a guitar break on that cut, exhorting "Do it, Lonnie, do it!", words he was not likely to have directed to a fill-in session bassist. In addition, many have commented that the guitar work on that track simply does not sound like lead guitarist Robbie Krieger's style.

Adding to the speculation is a 2006 release of an out-take from the session, recorded before Mack arrived. The album's producer, Paul Rothchild, is heard denouncing Krieger's efforts on "Roadhouse Blues" up to that point. Mack himself recalls composing and recording some blues guitar lines at The Doors' request, using Krieger's guitar. He remembers handing the guitar back to Krieger, who copied Mack's riffs until his final recorded effort was indistinguishable from Mack's original. Today, no one knows whose guitar track — Mack's or Krieger's — ended up in the final mix of 1970's "Roadhouse Blues".

Regardless, Mack made a lasting impression on The Doors. Twenty years after the recording session, the band's drummer, John Densmore wrote:

Lonnie sat down in front of the paisley baffles that soak up the sound. A hefty guy with a pencil-thin beard, he had on a wide-brimmed hat that had become his trademark. Lonnie Mack epitomized the blues---not the rural blues, but the city blues; he was bad. "I'll sing the lyrics for you," Jim [Morrison] offered meekly. [Morrison] was unusually shy. We all were, because to us, the guitar player we had asked to sit in with us was a living legend.

— John Densmore, Riders on the Storm, Dell, 1990, p. 235

Mack's final Elektra album, The Hills of Indiana, marked the beginning of his decade-long shift of focus away from R&B and blues-rock, towards the country end of the musical spectrum.

1970s: Flying "under the radar"

As the '70s began, at the peak of his fame as a guitarist and singer, Mack virtually abandoned blues-rock and R&B. For most of the ensuing decade, he performed only sporadically, recorded mostly in an "easy-listening" country-flavored style, and, in general, made a point of staying out of the spotlight.

In 1970, exhausted from years of touring, Mack put his guitar aside and became a talent scout/producer for Elektra. Acting in that role, just as the "country-rock" and "outlaw country" movements were gaining traction, Mack used his rock & roll clout to convince Elektra's parent company to headquarter a country label in Nashville, endearing him to many in the country music field. However, he quickly discovered that his new job required him to navigate a frustrating maze of corporate politics. Fed up, Mack packed his bags and returned to Indiana.

For a time during the early '70s, Mack played lead guitar in Dobie Gray's band. Gray is best-known for his hit tunes, "The 'In' Crowd", "Drift Away" and "Loving Arms". As a Nashville-based black artist who wrote and performed both country and R&B material, his career can be seen as a mirror-image of Mack's. In 1974, Mack played lead guitar on Gray's album Hey, Dixie. In March of that year, he performed as Gray's lead guitarist at the last broadcast of The Grand Ole Opry from Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, right before Johnny Cash, whose own performance closed out that historic show. Mack and Gray remained friends; Gray's website displays a photo of Mack playing lead guitar for Gray at a Nashville performance during the 1990s.

Still in the mid-1970s, Mack found himself in Cincinnati, on the wrong end of a gun. According to Mack, he was crossing the street, mid-day, guitar in hand, on the way to a performing date. In the words of Mack's late-career signature tune, the sardonic "Cincinnati Jail":

Walkin' cross the street, a car almost run me down; I hit it on the fender, said "Better slow it down!"

Lonnie Mack

The gist of what happened next, according to the song's lyrics and some contemporary accounts: The driver, an off-duty policeman, stopped and shot Mack twice, after which Mack was taken before a judge, who threw Mack in jail, where Mack suffered without adequate medical attention for several days. Mack himself has said little about the incident over the years, beyond the lyrics of his song.

Mack was released on bail and all charges were dropped. He eventually recovered from his wounds, but virtually disappeared from the music scene for a couple of years after this incident. During that period, he shunned recording and touring, renounced the blues-rock and R&B styles for which he was famous, and founded the obscure "Friendship Music Park" in rural southern Indiana, which featured local bluegrass and traditional country artists.

In 1977, Mack emerged from the shadows and signed with Capitol Records. There, he recorded Home at Last. Like 1971's The Hills of Indiana, it was an album of mostly country-flavored tunes. In 1978, he recorded another Capitol LP, Lonnie Mack with Pismo, with Graham Nash. Pismo included both rockabilly and country-nuanced material. Most of the cuts on both albums were played in a more laid-back style than Mack's better-known recordings from the 1960's. Although both albums were listenable and enjoyable, "laid-back" was not what most fans and critics wanted to hear from Lonnie Mack, and, like The Hills of Indiana, these albums sold only modestly.

Later in 1978, Mack entered into a six-month playing and song-writing collaboration with rockabilly artist Ronnie Hawkins, founder of The Hawks (later, and more famously, known as The Band). Mack's lead guitar work from this period can be heard on Hawkins' 1981 album, Legend In His Spare Time.

In 1979, Mack began working on an independent recording project with a close friend, producer Ed Labunski. The intended result was a country-pop album to be entitled South. Sadly, Labunski died in an auto accident before the project was completed, and the unfinished album was not released for almost 20 years. Labunski's death also derailed Mack's and Labunski's plans to produce a young Texas blues-guitar prodigy named Stevie Ray Vaughan. However, Vaughan was soon to become a key player in Mack's blues-rock comeback.

1980s: "Comeback" decade

By the early 1980s, Mack had been intentionally absent from the blues-rock music scene for over a decade. Although he was still revered by his guitarist peers, his popularity as a recording artist had been eclipsed by that of many guitarists who had followed in his footsteps beginning in the late '60s. Mack chose this low point in his career to resume performing and touring, adopting a hard-driving blues-rock/rockabilly fusion style that became the cornerstone of his sound for the next two decades.

During this time, Mack recorded the accidental gem, Live at Coco's. It is Mack's only mid-career roadhouse performance caught on tape. Initially an unauthorized recording by the club's sound engineer, Mack later acquired the rights to it and put it out on his own "Flying V" label as a 2-CD set. Coco's shows Mack in fine form both vocally and instrumentally, performing in every genre at which he excelled. The sound quality of Coco's is much better than that of most "bootleg" recordings, and, since Mack and his band did not know they were being recorded, their performance was raw and spontaneous, leaving no doubt that they were enjoying themselves by doing what they did best.

In 1983, Mack relocated to Texas, where he played regularly at clubs in Dallas and Austin. A photo from this period of Eric Clapton jamming with Mack at one of the latter's Texas club performances is found on Mack's website.

Early in this period, Mack entered into a performing collaboration with the late Stevie Ray Vaughan. Little known outside of Texas in 1980, Vaughan's own career took off during this period, and by 1985 he was an international blues-rock sensation. Mack and Vaughan had first met in the late 1970s, when Mack, acting on a tip from Vaughan's older brother, guitarist Jimmie Vaughan, went to hear him play at a local bar. Vaughan recalled the meeting in a 1985 interview:

I was playin' at the Rome Inn in Austin, and we had just hit the opening chords of "Wham!" when this big guy walked in. He looked just like a great big bear. As soon as I looked at his face, I realized who he was, and naturally he was blown away to hear us doing his song. [W]e talked for a long time that night. [Lonnie said] he wanted to produce us.

— Sandmel, "Rock Pioneer Lonnie Mack In Session With Stevie Ray Vaughan", Guitar Player, April 1985, p33

Mack and Vaughan became close friends after that first meeting. Vaughan came to regard the older Mack as "something between a daddy and a brother". (SRV interview, Guitar World, Nov. 1985, p. 30). Mack felt the same way, and found that he played his best when challenged by Vaughan's skill. He also benefitted from Vaughan's kindness and friendship: When Mack was stricken with a life-threatening illness, requiring a lengthy hospitalization and recovery, Vaughan put on a benefit concert to pay for Mack's medical bills.

In the musical sense, Mack's and Vaughan's relationship had begun long before they met. Vaughan had idolized Mack since his teen years, and often said that "Wham!" was "the first record I ever owned". An intuitive guitar-player who had never learned to read music, Vaughan said that "[Lonnie] taught me to play guitar from the heart". Vaughan's Grammy-winning albums include covers of "Wham!" and another Mack tune, "If You Have To Know". Vaughan also recorded "Chicken-Pickin'" in his own unique style as a tribute to Mack, calling it "Scuttle-Buttin'". Vaughan's live performances throughout the '80s customarily included a stirring rendition of "Wham!"

File:Lonnie Mack-Strike Like Lightning.jpg

Strike Like Lightning cover

Fully recovered from his illness, Mack signed with Alligator Records in 1984, and began working on his blues-rock comeback album, Strike Like Lightning. Mack and Vaughan co-produced the album, realizing their goal of recapturing the essence of Mack's original sound in an updated format.

Strike was released in early 1985. It was a major hit for an indie recording, and is still Alligator's all-time best-selling album. Strike was a collection of back-to-back standouts, and contained some of Mack's most satisfying vocals and guitar-playing since the 1960s. Mack himself composed most of the tunes. Consistent with Mack's live performance style, most of the cuts featured his mature, gravelly vocals and driving guitar equally. Vaughan played rhythm guitar on most of the album, and traded leads with Mack on two cuts, "Double Whammy", and "Satisfy Susie". Both played acoustic guitar on Mack's "Oreo Cookie Blues".

Strike propelled Mack back into the spotlight at age 44. Much of 1985 found Mack occupied with a promotional concert tour for Strike which included guest appearances by Vaughan, Ry Cooder and both Keith Richards and Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones, among others. Concert film footage of Mack and Vaughan playing cuts from Strike is now accessible on YouTube and similar websites. In 2007, Sony's Legacy label released an 11-minute "live" performance of Mack's "Oreo Cookie Blues" featuring Mack and Vaughan trading leads on electric guitar.

The Strike Like Lightning tour culminated in a Carnegie Hall concert billed as Further On Down the Road, a tip of the hat to Mack's 1964 recording by the same title. There, Mack shared the stage with two of his favorite guitarists, blues stylist Albert Collins and blues-rock guitarist Roy Buchanan. The concert was marketed on home video and remains available on Mack's website.

Late 1985 found Mack in Memphis, recording with artist Tim Krekel on the album Over The Fence, produced by Terry Manning. Mack's 1986 Alligator album, Second Sight, attracted less attention than Strike, but was consistently strong. In 1988, Mack moved to Epic Records, where he recorded the rockabilly classic, Roadhouses and Dance Halls.

1990-2006: Late career and awards

File:Lonnie Mack-Live-Attack of the Killer V.jpg

Live!: Attack of the Killer V
album cover

In 1990, at age 49, Mack returned to Alligator. There, he lobbied for a "concert" album, contending that his best work was inspired by playing before a live audience. The result was the electrifying Live! Attack of the Killer V. Prized by both blues-rock and rockabilly aficionados, Attack successfully captured the excitement of Mack's live performances, and showcased him at his late-career best. Although Attack remains Mack's most recent recording as a featured artist, he continued to tour extensively until 2002, almost five decades into his career.

Mack's most recent work as a session player can be found on the album Franktown Blues, recorded in 2000. It is an album of the songs of Chicago and delta blues legend Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, sung by his three sons, the Crudup Brothers. Mack played lead guitar on the album, in the classic Chicago blues style.

In 1993, Gibson honored him with a limited-run Lonnie Mack "signature edition" of the "Flying V" guitar. In 1998, Mack received his first "Cammy", an award made annually to outstanding musicians identified with the tri-State area of Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. In 2002, Terry Stewart, CEO of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, presented Mack with his second, "lifetime achievement", Cammy. In 2005, Mack was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In 2006, he was inducted into The Southern Legends Entertainment & Performing Arts Hall of Fame. Although considered worthy of the prestigious Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he has yet to be inducted.

Today

As in the case of Mark Twain over a century ago, the reports of Lonnie Mack's death have been greatly exaggerated. Mack lives in a log house deep in the hills of Tennessee, where he occupies himself as a songwriter and works on a memoir of his experiences as a key player in the "golden age" of rock & roll. He still occasionally performs, most recently at a 2007 benefit concert in Nashville, where he sang duets with veteran R&B vocalist Bonnie Bramlett and tore through "Cincinnati Jail" on his '58 Flying V.

Selected Album Discography

(1) Original Albums as Featured Artist

• The Wham of that Memphis Man! - (1964, Fraternity)
• Glad I'm in the Band - (1969, Elektra)
• Whatever's Right - (1969, Elektra)
• For Collectors Only - (1970, Elektra re-issue of Fraternity album)
• The Hills of Indiana - (1971, Elektra)
• Home At Last - (1977, Capitol)
• Lonnie Mack With Pismo - (1978, Capitol)
• South - (1980, Flying V)
• Live at Coco's - (1983, Flying V)
• Strike Like Lightning - (1985, Alligator)
• Second Sight - (1986, Alligator)
• Roadhouses and Dance Halls - (1988, Epic)
• Live: Attack of the Killer V - (1990, Alligator)

(2) Current Re-issues of Selected Fraternity and Elektra Recordings

• Memphis Wham! - (1999, Ace, rec. 1962-67)
• Direct Hits and Close Calls - (1999, Flying V, rec. 1962-67)
• From Cincinnati to California - (1999, Flying V, rec. 1969)

(3) Performing With Other Artists

• Gigi and the Charmaines - (2006, Ace, rec. 1962-63)
• Bonanza of Instrumentals - (w/Freddie King, 1965, King)
• Freddie King Sings Again - (w/Freddie King, 1965, King)
• Cold Sweat - (w/James Brown, 1967, King)
• James Brown Sings Raw Soul - (w/James Brown, 1967, King)
• Albert Washington with Lonnie Mack - (1999, Ace, rec. 1967-69)
• Morrison Hotel - (w/The Doors, 1970, Elektra)
• Hey, Dixie - (w/Dobie Gray, 1974, MCA)
• Legend In His Spare Time - (w/Ronnie Hawkins, 1981, Quality)
• Over The Fence - (w/Tim Krekel, 1986, Arista)
• Solos, Sessions and Encores - (w/Stevie Ray Vaughan, 1987, Legacy)
• Mendo Hotel - (w/Wayne Perkins, 1996, Reigning Creative)
• The Pressure's All Mine - (w/Jack Holland, 1998, Flying V)
• Franktown Blues - (w/The Crudup Brothers, 2000, Warehouse Creek)

(4) Live Performance on Video

• Further On Down The Road - (w/Albert Collins & Roy Buchanan, 1985)

See also

• Rockabilly Hall of Fame
• Cincinnati Blues Festival
• Long Beach Blues Festival

External links

• Lonnie Mack's official site
• Lonnie Mack biography at the All Music Guide website
• Rockabilly Hall of Fame website article on Mack