RIP Lonnie Mack

[Jeff Leites]

With what seemed like 24/7 coverage of Prince, I think that Lonnie Mack's passing slipped under the radar.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/ar...smtyp=cur&_r=0

[MikeRivers]

So many gone in so short a time. Lonnie Mack was indeed an important player in the evolution of rock and roll in the 1960s, pretty much responsible for moving rock's lead instrument from sax to guitar. But his name was never a household word, was mostly only known to guitarists, and it's easy for innovators like that to slip beneath the radar.

 

On the other hand, I had no idea that Beyonce introduced her latest project with an hour-long HBO special. Did she steal some thunder from Prince?

 

Pop music is a very fickle world.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Lonnie was one of those players who really made a difference - as Mike noted, he moved the primary Rock lead instrument from sax to guitar - and he was doing the whole blues-rock guitarslinger thing years before Bloomfield, Clapton, Beck and Page did it. He was an under-appreciated yet highly influential player!

[Notes_Norton]

Lonnie was one of those players who really made a difference - as Mike noted' date=' he moved the primary Rock lead instrument from sax to guitar<...>[/quote']

As much as I love his playing, I'll never forgive him for that

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

As much as I love his playing, I'll never forgive him for that

 

 

Guitar aside, I've always considered sax to be a suitable rock and roll solo instrument. I started playing sax years before I got serious about guitar.

[Notes_Norton]

I play both now, but I'm much better at the sax (I've been sax much longer than guitar, it's my 7th instrument).

 

I play for an older audience (Baby-Boomer crowd) because that's where the biggest market for live music is in my area of South Florida, and they definitely appreciate the sax.

 

Through the decades I've been playing, a band with a good guitarist AND a good sax player has always seemed a little more elevated than one without a sax.

 

The fact that it's less common than guitar is a plus, and with the ability to sustain for up to a minute, change volume while sustaining, wide variety of attacks to a note, and a number of other expressive devices not available to a picked or plucked string instrument, it has a bit more vox humana than a guitar does, even with dozens of pedals

 

Of course, guitar has other advantages.

 

I've loved Lonnie's playing since I first heard Wham! on the radio. Many later rock/blues guitarists like Johnny Winter, SRV and so on owe a debt to Lonnie (as he does to T-Bone Walker).

 

And Lonnie put the Flying V on the map.

 

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