The best and only

Of all the guitar slingers in the world, living,
dead, or otherwise, Sonny Landreth stands alone. Landreth’s playing style is as
unique as it is stunningly hypnotic. With merely the 10 fingers God gave him,
Landreth blends deft finger-style picking with slippery slide in a sea of
reverb and bluesy redemption.

          Landreth
was born 53 years ago in Mississippi, and moved to Lafayette, Louisiana, as a
small child. Growing up in a culturally and musically rich region, he was
immersed in all types of music early on. Elvis Presley’s guitarist, Scotty
Moore, was his first inspiration. As a child, Landreth would entertain
relatives at get-togethers with an Elvis Presley toy guitar.

          He
graduated to his first real guitar at age 13 and immediately formed a surf
band, The Electras. Playing gave him a deeper perspective and appreciation for
music. By the time Landreth was 16, he began to venture out, searching for
more.

          “I
met and heard for the first time both B.B. King and Clifton Chenier,” he says
from his home in Lafayette, Louisiana. “B.B. was playing this little black club
— this was before he became a superstar, obviously — in New Iberia,
Louisiana. I went and talked to him during the break. He just blew my mind.”

          But
King, though extraordinary, was playing fairly standard blues. Then Landreth
heard Chenier.

          “I
heard about this guy that played blues on the accordion,” he says. “Just the
thought of that, I couldn’t get my head around. Because when I thought of the
accordion, other things came to mind.”

          But
it was the wail of the slide guitar that snatched him up. Landreth was
introduced to it by “the old Delta guys,” he says, “particularly Robert
Johnson.”

          He
quickly slid right in to the style, approaching it from a point of reference he
already knew.

          “The
thing that helped me was learning Chet Atkins’ approach. It involves an element
of finger guarding — where you actually use the fingers on your right hand to
mute the strings you’re not playing on at the time. It cleans up the sound a
lot.” By the unlikely marriage of this country style with bottleneck slide,
Landreth slowly began to develop what is now a signature sound. But not
everyone was pleased.

          “Finger-style
served me well with the slide,” he says. “Though you couldn’t convince my
family or my dog at the time. It tortured all of them. It was a horrific sound
at first. So it took a while.”

          What
finally came out was Landreth’s own. It’s not that he’s the best — he’s the
only. No one sounds quite like Sonny Landreth. Period. Well, maybe Ry Cooder
— a little bit — but he’s busy rolling tape with the Cuban cats now.

          Louisiana’s
rich, complex music history has clearly led to Landreth’s distinctive refrain.

          “I
hope some of the uniqueness has rubbed off on me enough that it makes what I do
unique enough that people sit up and notice,” he says in a quiet Louisiana
accent that’s more like a stroll than a drawl. “Because otherwise: Let’s face
it, there’s a million others out there. It’s hard to tell sometimes, one from
the other.”

          On
stage, Landreth effortlessly lets fly with a blurred flurry of soaring notes.
And whereas this might sound like a barrage, his honeyed tone and ultra-smooth
attack re-create the tingling exhilaration of free fall. Between the dizzying
note-storms are exquisite calms; Landreth’s phrasing capitalizes on these brief
silences that, at times, come off louder than the notes they surround. His
technique is flawless and still beautifully human — you can hear the man’s
fingers on the strings — strings that sport a multitude of open tunings.

          But
the sound’s true source is Sonny’s soul: a soul borne of the blues.

          “It’s
always been at the core of everything I’ve done,” he says. “Even the ballads.
When blues is in your heart and soul, you grow up listening and learning it,
there’s something about it that you take to anything else you work on.”

          This
is blues more in the spiritual sense. Though Landreth got turned on by the old
masters, you’ll rarely hear him break into a standard shuffle or 12-bar. When
he does, it’s with a twist, and individual insight.

          “The
thing is, you hope at one point that those influences turn into your own
sound,” he says.

          “I’ve
always been fascinated by trying to emulate the human voice,” he says. “Because
I’ve noticed that in both my jazz heroes and my blues heroes. In learning to
develop your own style, the sound is of utmost importance. It’s about tone and
phrasing.”

          Landreth
has released eight solo albums and has heated up the strings as a session man
for artists like John Mayall, Dr. John, Dolly Parton, and with John Hiatt on
his two legendary releases Bring The
Family and Slow Turning. It’s the
band on those two albums, The Goners, who now tour with Landreth and who played
on his latest LP, The Road We’re On.

          The Road We’re On was nominated for a Grammy this year in the
contemporary blues category.

          “We
didn’t win the Grammy,” he says. “But we had a ball.”

          Landreth
lost out to Etta James.

          “I
can live with that,” he says.

Sonny Landreth and The
Goners play
on Fat Tuesday, February 24, at The Montage Grille, 50 Chestnut Street, at 8
p.m. Tix: $20-$22. 232-8380

This article appears in Feb 18-24, 2004.