Lonnie Mack

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American singer-guitarist Lonnie McIntosh (July 18, 1941 – April 21, 2016), known by his stage name Lonnie Mack, was an influential pioneer of blues-rock music and rock guitar soloing. Mack arrived on the pop music scene in 1963, with his proto-blues-rock debut LP, The Wham of that Memphis Man.

The album's vocals established Mack's renown as a blue-eyed soul singer, but he became more widely-known for its electric guitar instrumentals, including the 1963 hit singles, Memphis and Wham!.

In them, he introduced "edgy, aggressive, loud, and fast" blues solos to the prevailing chords-and-riffs format of early rock guitar.

Over the next decade, the albums's guitar tracks served as a "model" for the emerging lead guitarists of two new genres: blues-rock and its stylistic offshoot, Southern rock.

In the process, they raised the bar for rock guitar virtuosity and played a leadership role in the electric guitar's rise to the top of melodic soloing instruments in rock Only weeks after the album's release, however, the massively popular "British Invasion" arrived on American shores, and Mack's career "withered on the vine".

He marked time touring the roadhouse circuit and doing R&B session work until the height of the blues-rock era, in 1968.

At that point, Rolling Stone magazine rediscovered his pioneering blues-rock debut album, and Los Angeles' Elektra Records signed him to a three-album contract.

He immediately graduated to major performance venues, but his multi-genre Elektra recordings underplayed his blues-rock appeal and were only modestly successful.

Disillusioned, Mack left Elektra and Los Angeles in 1971, spending the next fourteen years as a mostly-unnoticed country music recording artist, roadhouse performer, sideman, and music-venue proprietor.In 1985, with encouragement from Stevie Ray Vaughan, Mack resurfaced with the successful blues-rock LP, Strike Like Lightning, a promotional tour featuring celebrity guitarist sit-ins, and a concert at Carnegie Hall.

In 1990, he released another well-received blues-rock album, Lonnie Mack Live! Attack of the Killer V, after which he retired as a recording artist.

He continued to perform, mostly in smaller venues, until 2004.

Early life and musical influences

Shortly before Mack's birth, his family moved from Appalachian (eastern) Kentucky to Dearborn County, Indiana, on the banks of the Ohio River. One of five children, he was born to parents Robert and Sarah Sizemore McIntosh on July 18, 1941, in West Harrison, Indiana, near Cincinnati, Ohio. He was raised on a series of nearby sharecropping farms.

Using a floor-model radio powered by a truck battery, his family routinely listened to the Grand Ole Opry country music show. Continuing to listen after the rest of the family had retired for the night, Mack became a fan of rhythm and blues and traditional black gospel music.

He began playing guitar at the age of seven, after trading his bicycle for a "Lone Ranger" model acoustic guitar. His mother taught him basic chords, and he was soon playing bluegrass guitar in the family band. Mack recalled that when he was "seven or eight years old" an uncle from Texas introduced him to blues guitar and that when he was about ten years of age, an "old black man" named Wayne Clark introduced him to "Robert Johnson style guitar". He soon taught himself to merge finger-picking country guitar with acoustic blues-picking, to produce a hybrid style which, Mack said, "sounded like rockabilly, but before rockabilly".

His musical influences remained diverse as he refined his playing and singing styles. In his pre-teen years, Mack was mentored by blind singer-guitarist Ralph Trotto, a well-regarded country-gospel performer. Mack would skip school to play music with Trotto at the latter's house. Mack considered country picker Merle Travis, pop/jazz guitarist Les Paul, and electric blues guitarist T-Bone Walker the most significant influences on his developing guitar style. Significant vocal influences included R&B singers Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles, Bobby "Blue" Bland, and Hank Ballard, country singer George Jones, traditional black gospel singer Archie Brownlee, and soul music singer Wilson Pickett. Mack recorded tunes associated with each of these artists.

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Career

Mack's career-long streak of shifting and mixing within the entire spectrum of white and black Southern roots music genres made him "as difficult to sell as he was to describe." He enjoyed periods of commercial success as a rock artist in the 1960s and 1980s, but he was largely absent from the spotlight for two decades (1971–1984) during which he appeared in small venues as a roots-rock "cult figure." In the end, his "influence and standing among musicians far outweighed his (commercial) success."

Mack dropped out of school at the age of 13, his mother was expelled from classes. He obtained a fake ID and began performing in bars around Cincinnati with a band led by drummer Hoot Smith. In 1955, he made $300 as a 14-year-old professional electric guitarist. "Most people work in the area's casket and whiskey factories produce more than a week." In the late 1950s, he appeared on several low-circulation recordings.

He began playing session guitar for Fraternity Records, a small Cincinnati label in the early 1960s. He recorded two hit singles for Fraternity, the proto-blues-rock guitar players, "Memphis" and "Wham!" in 1963. He soon recorded additional tunes to flesh out his debut album, The Wham of That Memphis Man (1963). Mack made some notable recordings in the 1980s, particularly in the 1980s, but his 1963 debut album is widely considered to be the foundation of his career.

It became a perennial critics' favorite:

Between 1963 and 1967, he dominated many other sides for Fraternity, but no one, if any, were widely published or heavily promoted, and none were named, and none were fully promoted, and none of them were charted. Ace Records (UK) collected the entirety of Mack's Fraternity (previously launched, unveiled, and demos) in a series of compilations three decades ago. Mack's commercial prospects were stymied by Fraternity's insufficiable financial resources and, even more, by the introduction of the extremely popular British Invasion, just two months after the launching of The Wham of That Memphis Man. "It seemed that the guitarist wizard was going to bust out before the music world was turned on its ear." The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964, and Mack's [recording] career stalled on the vine."

Though Mack's recording career had come to an end, he stayed busy as a performer, criss-crossing the country with one-night stands. "We were full of piss and vinegar in the 1960s, man, nothing bothered us." We had bennies, like the truckers [and] we stayed on the road all the time." "We] performed with just about everybody during that period, [from] Jimi Hendrix [to] The Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, and Dee Dee." He also performed session work with James Brown, Freddie King, Joe Simon, Albert Washington, and other R&B/soul musicians.

Elektra Records purchased Mack's dormant Fraternity recording deal and moved him to Los Angeles in 1968, at the height of the blues-rock period. In November 1968, the newly founded Rolling Stone magazine published a rave review of Mack's long-defunct 1963 debut album, urging Elektra to re-issue it. He was shortly appearing in major rock venues, including the Fillmore East, the Fillmore West, and the Cow Palace. He opened The Doors and Crosby, Stills & Nash, and performed on the stage with Johnny Winter, Elvin Bishop, and other well-known rock and blues artists of the time.

Mack's gritty, blue-collar persona made for a strange match with commercial rock's target group. "All" the finest chops in the world couldn't deny that chubby, country Mack had more in common with Kentucky truck drivers than he did with the younger rock audience," John Morthland said. In addition, Mack himself was dissatisfied with his blues-rock appeal, including his guitar, after two multi-genre Elektra albums (both recorded in 1969) that downplayed his blues-rock strengths, including his guitar: I wasn't necessarily happy with a lot of the stuff I did there.

Mack took a break from performing and recording at this point in his career. Mack was seen outside his car's back yard selling Bibles. During this time, Robbie Krieger, the lead guitarist of Elektra label-mate The Doors, was seen "selling Bibles out of his back door." He spent time with Elektra's A&R branch, assisting in the recruitment of new talent. Mack left Nashville in 1971 after only one album was left to finish his Elektra deal. There, he recorded The Hills of Indiana, a multi-genre (but country-flavored) LP with a vocal emphasis. It contained just one track showcasing his guitar virtuosity, Asphalt Outlaw Hero. The hills attracted little attention.

When under Elektra's custody, Mack soured on the prospect of rock celebrity status. "It had] a lot to do with how much money you put on rather than what makes you happy. I wasn't happy. "When the L.A. sign was in my rear-view mirror and I was free again," one of the best-feeling moments I'll ever had was when that L.A. sign was in my rear-view mirror and I was free again." Mack said, "Seems like every time I get close to making it," he said, when the summit is reached, I pull out." "I just pulled up and ran." Mack's country-boy temperament, according to music historian Dick Shurman, was "not suited to stardom" following Mack's death in 2016. I believe he'd rather have been hunting and fishing. He didn't like cities or the (music) industry" industry.

Mack returned to southern Indiana, where he was a roadhouse performer, sideman, and low-profile country/bluegrass recording artist in 1971, as part of his Elektra contract was complete. During this time, he also owned and operated a nightclub in Covington, Kentucky, and an outdoor country music venue in Friendship, Indiana. Mack was fired during an altercation with an off-duty police officer in 1977. Mack's song, Cincinnati Jail, was inspired by the experience, a rowdy, guitar-and-vocal rock number that he adored in live performances later in his career.

Mack moved to Austin, Texas, in 1983 for a friendship with his blues-rock mentor, guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. Mack was encouraged to return to the studio, with Vaughan in production and backup roles, but Mack's return was delayed due to a lengthy illness. Mack's 1985-fledged comeback with the blues-rock album Strike Like Lightning (co-produced by Vaughan and Mack), a tour that included guest appearances by Vaughan, Ry Cooder, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood, as well as a concert at Carnegie Hall with Albert Collins and Roy Buchanan, were held in Carnegie Hall.

Mack appeared on "The Great American Guitar Assault Tour" in 1986, with Buchananan and Dickey Betts. Lonnie Mack Live!, a blues-rock album, released three more albums over the next four years, including his last in 1990, a blues-rock LP. The Killer V! attack! He retired from touring to selling records, and then started his musical career. Nevertheless, he continued to perform the roadhouse and festival circuits at his own pace through 2004.

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