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Sonny Landreth

Born in Mississippi, relocated to Lafayette, Louisiana, Sonny Landreth was immersed in the great Swamp-pop and Zydeco music of the area. He picked up a variety of musical styles playing with some of the best musicians on the Louisiana scene, while developing his considerable songwriting skills. One of Sonny's first professional gigs was with Zydeco legend Clifton Chenier.

Landreth's guitar capabilities landed him work as a sought-after session musician. He has played on records by John Hiatt, Bonnie Raitt, Zachary Richard, Freddy Fender, John Mayhall, Kenny Loggins, Beausoleill, Junior Wells, Dolly Parton, Maria Muldaur, Allen Toussaint, and Mark Knopfler. He hasn't really played on a big hit record, but he has played vital roles in other artist's careers.

The first thing guitar players do when they discover Sonny Landreth is scratch their heads and wonder how on earth he played what they just heard. He uses a slide but his strings are high off the frets and he is able to finger notes behind the slide. This totally unique style results in some of the most fascinating sounds heard from an electric guitar. Facilitating this new technique is a myriad of different tunings on his guitar. He uses so many different tunings that he has pioneered the use of an automatic guitar tuner mounted on his instrument.

Sonny played the trumpet as a teenager and uses hints of the articulation of the instrument on the guitar.

Although his grooves are typical Blues, Rock and Roll, and Zydeco beats, his approach uses his playing and songwriting to create a fresh new sound in roots music. Playing with just a bass player and a drummer, Landreth's sound can fill the biggest arenas and can stand toe-to toe with the biggest Rock acts. Probably the biggest wall of sound three musicians can erect.

It can be very hard for a modern artist to have a distinctive voice in the Blues. Some fans expect a certain approach that relates to the artists of the past. Sonny Landreth has shown that he can take that approach and create new grooves and sounds that are unconventional yet knee-deep in the spirit of the Blues. Along with young artists like the North Mississippi Allstars, Sonny is taking the Blues and the guitar to the next level just like Muddy Waters and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

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Album Review

Sonny Landreth: Recorded Live in Lafayette

Read "Recorded Live in Lafayette" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Slide guitarist Sonny Landreth releases his third live recording after 2005's Grant Street (Sugar Hill Records) and 2007's Sonny Landreth -Live at 2007 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (Munckmusic). Far from just another live release from a jam band, Recorded Live in Lafayette reveals some clever programming by Landreth. Disc one of this two-disc set is an acoustic collection featuring Landreth on his signature resophonic steel-body guitar. This is a departure from his previous live shows, which were typically ...

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Extended Analysis

Sonny Landreth: Bound By the Blues

Read "Sonny Landreth: Bound By the Blues" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Fresh Cream (Atco) was released in 1966, at the height of the blues revival that began in the late 1950s with the publication of Samuel Charter's The Country Blues (Rinehart, 1950) and the subsequent release of the LP The Country Blues (Folkways, 1959). In the early blues revival, it was the rural, acoustic blues that were resurrected and celebrated. Then the ancient-by-any-standards folk songs made it to Great Britain, they were assimilated and recreated in a sonic image not previously ...

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Album Review

Peter Novelli: St. Amant Sessions

Read "St. Amant Sessions" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Peter Novelli's St. Amant Sessions smacks of Tab Benoit's The Sea Saint Sessions (Telarc, 2003). For Benoit, the significance of Sea Saint Studios is that they are a NOLA landmark founded by Allen Toussaint. For Novelli, St. Amant, LA is up I-10 between NOLA and Baton Rouge. There, Brignac's Sound Shack resides and this is where, Novelli recorded his third collection, St. Amant Sessions. Both men play a brand of American and blues that can immediately be identified as from ...

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Extended Analysis

Sonny Landreth: Elemental Journey

Read "Sonny Landreth: Elemental Journey" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Sonny Landreth Elemental Journey Landfall Records 2012 How did we arrive at the phenomenon that is guitarist Sonny Landreth? In his autobiography, Father of the Blues: An Autobiography (Da Capo Press, 1969), African American composer W. C. Handy detailed his experience of sleeping on the train platform in Tutwiler, Mississippi, en route to Clarksdale, around 1903. At one point, Handy was awakened from his Delta slumber by: “a lean, ...

411
Extended Analysis

Sonny Landreth: Grant Street

Read "Sonny Landreth: Grant Street" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Sonny Landreth Grant Street Sugar Hill Records 2005 “A [man] had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept...as he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable. His song, too, struck me instantly... “Goin' where the Southern cross' the Dog..." ~W.C. Handy, early 20th Century, Tutwiler Train Station, Tutwiler, Mississippi.

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Album Review

Sonny Landreth: The Road We're On

Read "The Road We're On" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


. . .Falling out of solution, perfectly.

The title of innovator is one not to be overused, and in all of the history of music there have only been a handful. When restricting the discussion to the technical performance aspects of guitar, three true innovators come to mind. Jimi Hendrix shot the electric guitar into the stratosphere with his blues pyrotechnics on songs such as “Machine Gun" and “Voodoo Chile (A Slight return)." Eddie Van Halen came along to initiate ...

147
Album Review

Sonny Landreth: Levee Town

Read "Levee Town" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


For slide guitar enthusiasts, it doesn't get any better than this.

It is interesting that the finest slide guitarist playing would use a Louisiana Zydeco fare to display his considerable talent rather than its Mississippi cousin, the Blues, but that is exactly what Sonny Landreth does. In the same way that Jimi Hendrix goosed the evolution of playing the electric blues, has Landreth done for the slide guitar. Born in the Mississippi, the slide guitar has had an impressive list ...

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Education

Guitar Legend Robben Ford Announces Guitar Dojo Camp with Sonny Landreth

Guitar Legend Robben Ford Announces Guitar Dojo Camp with Sonny Landreth

Source: Chris M. Slawecki

Few guitarists have simultaneously shattered the boundaries of blues guitar with the eloquence and melodic invention of Robben Ford and slide guitar visionary Sonny Landreth. From August 4 – 8, 2014, at the elegantly rustic Full Moon Resort in the Catskill Forest Preserve (about 30 miles west of Woodstock, N.Y.), enthusiasts and guitarists of all skill levels will receive a once in a lifetime opportunity to join Robben Ford and Sonny Landreth for four days and nights of personal guitar ...

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Education

Bluesman Sonny Landreth to Teach and Perform at 3rd Annual Crown of the Continent Guitar Workshop & Festival

Bluesman Sonny Landreth to Teach and Perform at 3rd Annual Crown of the Continent Guitar Workshop & Festival

Source: conqueroo

Held at the Flathead Lake Lodge in Bigfork, MT August 26 - September 2, 2012 Sonny's gearing up for the Crown of the Continent Guitar Foundation's workshop and festival as the Blues Artist in Residence, August 26-September 2, 2012. This is an exceptional occasion to study closely with and spend time with Sonny at one of the world's premier dude ranches. He'll also be performing. Sonny will be joining renowned faculty members, Matt Smith and Dennis McCumber of National Guitar ...

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Recording

Sonny Landreth's 11th Album, 'Elemental Journey,' is First All-Instrumental Outing

Sonny Landreth's 11th Album, 'Elemental Journey,' is First All-Instrumental Outing

Source: conqueroo

May 22 release features Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani, Robert Greenidge and Steve Conn. BREAUX BRIDGE, La. — Sonny Landreth's 11th album, bearing the fittingly evocative title Elemental Journey, is something very different from the Louisiana slide wizard. Released on his own Landfall label on May 22, 2012, the new CD is Landreth's first all-instrumental effort and his most adventurous work to date. “From day one on the guitar, many genres of music have had an impact on me" says Landreth. ...

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Recording

Sonny Landreth Reissues 'Levee Town' CD with Unreleased Tracks

Sonny Landreth Reissues 'Levee Town' CD with Unreleased Tracks

Source: conqueroo

Originally released in 2000, the album features guests John Hiatt, Bonnie Raitt and Michael Doucet of BeauSoleil.

Sonny Landreth's 2000 release Levee Town, originally issued on Sugar Hill Records, will be reissued on April 21, 2009 on Landreth's own Landfall Records, distributed by Ryko through Virtual Label.

The re-mastered reissue will contain five previously unreleased tracks from the original sessions (“Pedal To Metal,” “Road A Plenty,” “Old Flame,” “Fare You Well” and a co-write with Will Jennings, “For Who We ...

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Recording

Sonny Landreth Taps Clapton, Knopfler, Dr. John, J. Buffett and More on New Album, 'From the Reach'

Sonny Landreth Taps Clapton, Knopfler, Dr. John, J. Buffett and More on New Album, 'From the Reach'

Source: conqueroo

Louisiana-based singer/songwriter/slide-guitar monster Sonny Landreth will release his ninth album, titled From The Reach and his first on his own Landfall Records label (distributed by Ryko Distribution), on May 20. On it, Landreth does something unprecedented in his body of work as he collaborates with five of the greatest guitar players on the planet -- Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Robben Ford, Eric Johnson and Vince Gill -- in some jaw-dropping performances. Also making appearances are the legendary New Orleans pianist ...

Photos

Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Recorded Live in...

Provogue Records
2017

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Sonny Landreth: Bound...

Provogue Records
2015

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St. Amant Sessions

Chalet Music LLC
2015

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Sonny Landreth:...

Landfall Records
2012

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From the Reach

Unknown label
2008

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Sonny Landreth: Grant...

Sugar Hill Records
2005

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