Lonnie Mack

Lonnie Mack (2003)

Lonnie Mack , actually Lonnie McIntosh (born July 18, 1941 in Harrison , Dearborn County , Indiana , †  April 21,  2016 in Smithville , Tennessee ) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. His music is located in the field of tension between blues , rock , soul and country . His guitar playing in the early 1960s is considered to be a style defining element of later blues rock ; it influenced such well-known guitarists as Eric Clapton , Keith Richards , Jimmy Page and Stevie Ray Vaughan .

Lonnie Mack's career, which lasted well over half a century, was marked by ups and downs as well as the alternation of blues and country phases. His most successful times were in the first half of the 1960s and mid-1980s in the blues rock area.

biography

Born near Cincinnati , Lonnie McIntosh grew up in rural Indiana. His childhood musical influences were family country , gospel in church, and rhythm and blues on the radio. Even as a child he earned pocket money with his guitar.

After a violent argument with a teacher, he was thrown out of school at the age of 13 and began to earn money as a musician in the border triangle Indiana- Kentucky - Ohio . In 1958 he bought the guitar he played throughout his career: a Gibson Flying V with the serial number "7".

In addition to his live performances, Lonnie Mack, as he called himself since the late 1950s, also worked as a studio musician. On March 12, 1963, he used the remaining studio time after completing a recording session for his own recording: he improvised Memphis, Tennessee by Chuck Berry from 1959. The record label Fraternity released the piece as Memphis , and to everyone's surprise it rose to number 5 of the US pop charts .

Several singles followed, including Wham! , Chickin 'pickin' and ballads like Where There's a Will , all of which fell short of Memphis' success . In 1964, Fraternity released The Wham of That Memphis Man! on the market. However, the British invasion that began that year prevented greater success.

Mack continued to work as a studio musician and accompanied Freddie King and James Brown , among others . After an article in Rolling Stone in 1968 he got a record deal with Elektra Records , from which three albums resulted (1969-1971), which musically moved more towards soul and country. In 1970 he accompanied the Doors while recording their album Morrison Hotel . In the Roadhouse Blues on this album, you can hear Jim Morrison shouting "Do it, Lonnie, do it!".

After the end of the Elektra contract, Mack retired to his rural home. He continued to perform and record with other musicians. In 1975 he was shot by a police officer in an argument and sent to prison. In 1977 he got a new recording contract with Capitol Records , where he recorded two country-oriented albums (1977-1978).

In 1979 Mack started a new project with Ed Labunski. They set up a studio in Pennsylvania and produced the album for a band called "South". However, Labunski died in a car accident before the album could be released. Another musician that the two supervised as a producer was the then unknown Stevie Ray Vaughan . After Labunski's death, Mack worked in Canada with Ronnie Hawkins on his album Legend in His Spare Time (1981).

In the early 1980s, Lonnie Mack returned to blues rock. The recordings for Live at Coco’s were made in 1983, but were only released as an official album in 1998. In Texas, Mack worked again with Stevie Ray Vaughan, resulting in the album Strike Like Lightning , which was released in 1985 on Alligator Records . On the tour that followed, Mack performed alongside Vaughan with famous colleagues such as Ry Cooder , Keith Richards , Ron Wood , Albert Collins and Roy Buchanan .

In 1986 the follow-up album Second Sight came out. In 1988 Epic Records released the rockabilly album Roadhouses and Dance Halls . Again at Alligator, Mack released the live album Attack of the Killer V in 1990 . After that, things got quieter for Lonnie Mack. Occasionally he still worked as a studio musician or performed at special concerts.

Discography

Studio albums

year	Title music label	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, music label , placements, weeks, awards, notes)	Remarks
		US
1963	The Wham of That Memphis Man! Fraternity 1014	US103 (9 weeks) US	First published: November 193 Producer: Carl Edmondson
1985	Strike Like Lightning Alligator 4739	US130 (21 weeks) US	First published: June 1985 Producers: Lonnie Mack, Stevie Ray Vaughan , Mindy Giles Executive Producer: Bruce Iglauer

More studio albums

• 1969: Glad I'm in the Band ( Elektra 74040)
• 1969: Whatever's Right (Elektra 74050)
• 1971: The Hills of Indiana (Elektra 74102)
• 1973: Dueling Banjos (with Rusty York; Jewel)
• 1977: Home at Last ( Capitol 11319)
• 1978: Lonnie Mack with Pismo (with Pismo; Capitol 11703)
• 1980: South - First Edition (as Lonnie McIntosh; first published commercially in 1999; Flying V ED-2)
• 1986: Second Sight (Alligator 4750)
• 1988: Roadhouses and Dance Halls ( Epic 44075)

Live albums

• 1990: Live! Attack of the Killer V (Photo: Fitzgerald's, Berwyn , December 14-16, 1989; Alligator 4786)
• 1998: Live at Coco's (recording: 1983)

Compilations

• 1976: The Memphis Sounds of Lonnie Mack (Trip 9522)
• 1992: Lonnie on the Move ( Ace )
• 1999: Memphis Wham! (Ace 713; release: July 27th)
• 2001: From Nashville to Memphis (Ace 807; released May 29)
• 2004: Still on the Move: The Fraternity Years 1963-68 (Ace 847; release: December 27th)

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)			Remarks
		UK	US	R&B
1963	Memphis The Wham of That Memphis Man!	UK47 (3 weeks) UK	US5 (13 weeks) US	R&B4 (8 weeks) R&B	First published: May 1963 in UK only placed in April 1979 as split single B-side (UK A-side: Chris Montez - Let's Dance ) Author and original: Chuck Berry , 1959
	Wham! The Wham of That Memphis Man!	-	US24 (9 weeks) US	-	First published: August 1963 Author: Lonnie Mack
	Baby, What's Wrong The Wham of That Memphis Man!	-	US93 (1 week) US	-	First published: November 1963 Author and original: Jimmy Reed , 1959
1965	Honky Tonk '65	-	US78 (5 weeks) US	-	First published: September 1965 Authors: Bill Doggett , Shep Shepherd, Clifford Scott , Billy Butler Original: Bill Doggett, 1956

More singles

• 1964: Lonnie on the Move (release: February)
• 1964: Sa-Ba-Hoola (release: March)
• 1964: I've Had It (released April)
• 1964: Chickin 'Pickin' (release: July)
• 1964: Don't Make My Baby Blue (released December)
• 1965: Coastin ' (release: March)
• 1965: Crying over You (Promo; release: March)
• 1965: When I'm Alone
• 1966: Are You Guilty? (Release: January)
• 1966: There's Snow on the Mountain (release: August)
• 1966: Tension
• 1967: I Left My Heart in San Francisco
• 1967: Save Your Money
• 1968: Soul Express (release: February)
• 1968: Down and Out (release: April)
• 1968: Why (release: August)
• 1969: Save Your Money (Reissue; Release: March)
• 1969: Gotta Be an Answer
• 1971: Lay It Down (release: March)
• 1971: Rings (release: December)
• 1973: Hello Highway
• 1975: Rock n 'Roll Music (as The Lonnie Mack No Shuck and Jive Road Band from Friendship, Ind.)
• 1977: Running Wild
• 1982: Sexy Ways / Ridin 'the Blinds
• 1988: Too Rock for Country Too Country for Rock and Roll (released July)
• 1988: Hard Life
• 1988: Lonnie Mack Attack
• 1990: Stop

Awards

• Limited "Lonnie Mack Signature Edition" of the " Gibson Flying V " guitar (1993)
• Lifetime Achievement "Cammy" (1998 and 2002)
• Induction into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame (2005)
• Admission to the "Southern Legend Entertainment & Performing Arts Hall of Fame" (2006)

swell

1. ^ Paul Cashmere: RIP Lonnie Mack 1941-2016 In: noise11.com. April 22, 2016, accessed April 22, 2016
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} biography on Lonnie Macks homepage (English)
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Allmusic, see web links
4. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: UK US
5. ^ Joel Whitburn : Hot R&B Songs 1942–2010: 6th Edition, ISBN 978-0-89820-186-4 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Lonnie Mack in the catalog of the German National Library
• Website of Lonnie Mack (English)
• Lonnie Mack at Allmusic (English)
• Lonnie Mack at Discogs (English)