Lonnie Mack
When Lonnie Mack sings the blues, country strains are sure to infiltrate. Conversely, if he digs into a humping rockabilly groove, strong signs of a deep-down blues influence are bound to invade; par for the course for any musician who cites both Bobby Bland and George Jones as pervasive influences. Fact is, Mack's lightning-fast, vibrato-enriched, whammy bar-hammered guitar style has influenced many a picker, too, including Stevie Ray Vaughan, who idolized Mack's early singles for Fraternity and later co-produced and played on Mack's 1985 comeback LP for Alligator, Strike Like Lightning. Growing up in rural Indiana not far from Cincinnati, Lonnie McIntosh was exposed to a heady combination of R&B and hillbilly. In 1958, he bought the seventh Gibson Flying V guitar ever manufactured and played the roadhouse circuit around Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky. Mack has steadfastly cited another local legend, guitarist Robert Ward, as the man whose watery-sounding Magnatone amplifier inspired his own use of the same brand. Session work ensued during the early '60s behind Hank Ballard, Freddy King, and James Brown for Cincy's principal label, Syd Nathan's King Records. At the tail-end of a 1963 date for another local label, Fraternity Records, Mack stepped out front to cut a searing instrumental treatment of Chuck Berry's "Memphis." Fraternity put the number out, and it leaped all the way up to the Top Five on Billboard's pop charts! Its hit follow-up, the frantic "Wham!," was even more amazing from a guitar-playing perspective with Mack's lickety-split whammy-bar-fired playing driven like a locomotive by a hard-charging horn section. Mack's vocal skills were equally potent; R&B stations began to play his soul ballad "Where There's a Will" until they discovered Mack was Caucasian, then dropped it like a hot potato. Its flip, a sizzling vocal remake of Jimmy Reed's "Baby, What's Wrong," was a minor pop hit in late 1963.
Mack waxed a load of killer material for Fraternity during the mid-'60s, much of it not seeing the light of day until later on. A deal with Elektra Records inspired by a 1968 Rolling Stone article profiling Mack should have led to major stardom, but his three Elektra albums were less consistent than the Fraternity material. (Elektra also reissued his only Fraternity LP, the seminal The Wham of That Memphis Man.) Mack cameoed on the Doors' Morrison Hotel album, contributing a guitar solo to "Roadhouse Blues," and worked for a while as a member of Elektra's A&R team. Disgusted with the record business, Mack retreated back to Indiana for a while, eventually signing with Capitol and waxing a couple of obscure, country-based LPs. Finally, at Vaughan's behest, Mack abandoned his Indiana comfort zone for hipper Austin, TX, and began to reassert himself nationally. Vaughan masterminded the stunning Strike Like Lightning in 1985; later that year, Mack co-starred with Alligator labelmates Albert Collins and Roy Buchanan at Carnegie Hall (a concert marketed on home video as Further on Down the Road). Mack's Alligator encore, Second Sight, was a disappointment for those who idolized Mack's playing -- it was more of a singer/songwriter project. He temporarily left Alligator in 1988 for major-label prestige at Epic, but Roadhouses and Dancehalls was too diverse to easily classify and died a quick death. Mack's 1990 album, Live! Attack of the Killer V, was captured on tape at a suburban Chicago venue called FitzGerald's and once again showed why Lonnie Mack is venerated by anyone who's even remotely into savage guitar playing. ~ Bill Dahl
Discografia
21 album • Ordinato per Bestseller
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The Best Of Lonnie Mack - The Alligator Records Years (remastered)
Blues - Pubblicato da Alligator Records il 14 gen 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Strike Like Lightning
Blues - Pubblicato da Alligator Records il 1 gen 1985
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
For Collectors Only (The Wham Of That Memphis Man)
Blues - Pubblicato da Rhino - Elektra il 8 feb 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Second Sight
Blues - Pubblicato da Alligator Records il 1 gen 1986
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Wham of That Memphis Man!
Rock - Pubblicato da ACE RECORDS il 1 ott 1963
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Hills Of Indiana
Blues - Pubblicato da Rhino - Elektra il 1 gen 1971
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Glad I'm In The Band
Blues - Pubblicato da Rhino - Elektra il 1 gen 1969
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Live - Attack Of The Killer V
Blues - Pubblicato da Alligator Records il 1 gen 1990
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Whatever's Right
Blues - Pubblicato da Rhino - Elektra il 1 gen 1969
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Strike Like Lightning (Remastered)
Blues - Pubblicato da Alligator Records il 15 gen 1985
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sa-Ba-Hoola! Two Sides of Lonnie Mack
Rock - Pubblicato da ACE RECORDS il 26 feb 1990
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
From Nashville to Memphis
Rock - Pubblicato da ACE RECORDS il 28 mag 2002
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Still on the Move
Rock - Pubblicato da ACE RECORDS il 28 giu 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Lonnie Mack - Vintage Sounds
Blues - Pubblicato da Retro Music Box il 10 dic 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rhino Hi-Five: Lonnie Mack
Blues - Pubblicato da Rhino il 17 gen 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Down on the Dumps - Lonnie Mack
Blues - Pubblicato da ISIS il 4 nov 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Wham of That Memphis Man (Hd Remastered)
Blues - Pubblicato da Reborn recordings il 9 lug 2019
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
From Nashville to Memphis (Hd Remastered)
Blues - Pubblicato da Reborn recordings il 28 mag 2002
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo