Lonnie Mack

Lonnie Mack (born Lonnie McIntosh, 18 July 1941, Harrison, Indiana) is an influential rock and blues guitarist.

Career

Mack, a pioneer of the Blues-rock guitar genre, grew up in rural Indiana not far from Cincinnati, and was exposed to a combination of R&B and hillbilly influences. In 1958, he bought the seventh Gibson Flying V guitar ever manufactured,[1] and played the roadhouse circuit around Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky. Mack has cited local 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 1960s alongside Hank Ballard, Freddy King, and James Brown for Cincinnati's principal record label, Syd Nathan's King Records.

In a 1963 session with another local label, Fraternity Records, Mack recorded an instrumental cover version of Chuck Berry's "Memphis, Tennessee". In June of that year, it jumped up to #5 on the Billboard's then pop chart. Its instrumental follow-up, "Wham!," was another hit. Mack's vocal skills were equally potent; R&B radio stations began to play his soul ballad "Where There's a Will" until they discovered Mack was white. The B-side was a vocalised remake of Jimmy Reed's "Baby, What's Wrong," and was a minor pop hit in late 1963.

According to guitarist and music historian Richard J. Pinnell, Ph.D., "Memphis" was "unique" among Rock guitar instrumentals of its time, in that Mack used the "blues" scale. (Pinnell, "Lonnie Mack's 'Memphis': An Analysis of an Historic Rock Guitar Instrumental", Guitar Player Magazine, May 1979, p. 40). "Memphis", "Wham!", and several other Mack instrumentals from the early 1960s were notable not only for Mack's pioneering use of the "blues" scale, but also for Mack's use of distortion (primarily through manipulation of a Bigsby tailpiece), another stylistic element which was to become a hallmark of the Blues-rock guitar genre.

Mack recorded much material for Fraternity during the mid 1960s, but a proportion of the work was not released until later in his career. A deal with Elektra Records, born out of a 1968 Rolling Stone article profiling Mack, should have led to stardom, but his three Elektra albums were less consistent than the Fraternity material. Mack did a notable cameo on The Doors' Morrison Hotel album, playing bass on "Roadhouse Blues".

He recorded his 1969 album, Whatever's Right, for Elektra Records, and he recorded two singles for Jewel Records in 1970. Fed up with the music industry, Mack retreated back to Indiana for a while, eventually signing with Capitol Records, but only waxing a couple of obscure country flavored LPs.

Moving to Austin, Texas in the early 1980s, he finally began to reassert himself nationally. Strike like Lightning appeared in 1985, with co-production credit falling to Stevie Ray Vaughan - a lifetime fan of Mack's. Later that same year, Mack co-starred with Alligator Records labelmates Albert Collins and Roy Buchanan at Carnegie Hall (a concert marketed on home video as Further on Down the Road). Mack's Alligator follow-up was the disappointing Second Sight, and he temporarily left Alligator in 1988 for Epic Records, but this tenure quickly fizzled out.

Mack's final recording, a live concert performance album entitled Attack of the Killer V, was released in 1990 to critical acclaim and modest commercial success. Mack continued to tour extensively until the mid-1990s. During that decade, he received his first "Cammy", an award made annually to an outstanding musician from the tri-State area of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. In 2002, he was presented with an unprecedented second Cammy, for lifetime acheivement, by Terry Stewart, then President and CEO of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Although Lonnie Mack no longer tours or records, he still occasionally performs near his home, in and around Nashville, TN.

Discography (best of)

Albums

The Wham of that Memphis Man! - (1963) - U.S. Billboard Hot 200 #103
For Collectors Only - (1970)
Strike Like Lightning - (1985) - U.S. #130
Still on The Move - (2002)

Singles

"Baby, What's Wrong" - (1963) - U.S. Billboard Hot 100 #93
"Memphis" - (1963) - U.S. #5
"Wham!" - (1963) - U.S. #24
"Honky Tonk '65" - (1965) - U.S. #78

External links