Lonnie Mack, Blues-Rock Guitar Great, Dead at 74

[bluesbassman]

Damn, lost another great musician.

Lonnie Mack, the blues-rock pioneer who influenced an entire generation of guitarists like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Duane Allman, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards, died Thursday at a medical facility near his home in Smithville, Tennessee. Mack was 74. Alligator Records confirmed the guitar great's death, adding that Mack had died of natural causes.

In Mack's bio, he claims he started learning guitar at the age of five and, after dropping out of school in the 7th grade, pursued a professional music career as a young teenager. He played bars around the Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky stateliness before signing with Cincinnati's Fraternity Records. Mack also served as a session guitarist for artists like James Brown, Hank Ballard and Freddie King.

Mack's 1963 LP The Wham of That Memphis Man!, recorded for the Cincinnati-based Fraternity Records, boasted Mack's instrumental rendition of Chuck Berry's "Memphis," which became a surprise Billboard Top Five hit. Mack soon became known for his "blue-eyed soul" style of singing and his virtuosic guitar abilities that straddled genres like country, blues and R&B and, as Rolling Stone noted in a 1968 review, "a pioneer in rock guitar soloing."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lonnie-mack-blues-rock-guitar-great-dead-at-74-20160423#ixzz46lSgWcWG

Here's Lonnie with Albet Collins and Roy Buchanan. Three greats that are no longer with us.

[jpmonk91]

1. Great musician

A lot of great musicians are dying this year and it's sad. rip Lonnie Mac, lemmy, and Bowie. The music will live on!

[rock]

2. Known for the heavy vibrato on the guitar

[demtenjeep]

3. man too sad

2016 just sucks

[Blue_In_AK]

4. I remember him.

We've lost so many great musicians already this year. It's sad, but at least the music lives on.

[pintobean]

5. There was a lounge thread about this on Friday.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018860168

It's a shame that his passing got lost in the shadow of Prince. They were both pioneers in music.