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"Guitarist and vocalist Lonnie Mack, known as one of rock's first true guitar heroes". ( Guitar World April 2016)
"With his recent passing, we have lost not just a guitarist, but one of the pioneers". (This review)
This is album review number One Hundred and Eighty Nine in the series of retro-reviews of both vinyl and CD albums from my collection.
The series is called Cream of The Crate and each review represents an album that I believe represents significant musical value, either because of its rarity, because it represents the best of a style or styles of a music or because there is something unique about the music, the group or the particular production. The first fifty reviews were based on vinyl albums from my collection, with the following fifty on CD albums from my collection. Links to all these reviews can be found at the bottom of the page.
There are many great artists who have played guitar, and most can be associated strongly with at least one track that stood out. I have pulled an album out of the crate this week featuring a man know for his guitar work, remembered lovingly for one track in particular, but who, also had a great voice, even if that is often forgotten. With his recent passing, we have lost not just a guitarist, but one of the pioneers.
The artist is Lonnie Mac and this is a CD album is titled - Memphis Wham. It was released on the Fraternity Records on the ace label . It has the identifying code of CDCHD 713. It is an twenty four track album, which was never released on vinyl. The line-up features Mack's classic Fraternity album The Wham Of The Memphis Man, plus 13 extra tracks consisting of rare singles and eight previously unreleased sides and was released in 1999.
The CD comes with a booklet consisting of three double sided double pages on gloss print. It does provide a decent but not complete bio on Lonnie, and talks about some of the tracks. Sadly it has limited discussion on the additional unreleased/rare tracks on the album. The cover of the booklet doubles as the CD cover.
Rear of booklet
With his recent passing just a month ago, the spotlight has rightly been shined back on Lonnie Mac. He was born Lonnie McIntosh on July 18,1941 in the backwoods of Harrison, Indiana, some forty miles west of Cincinnati. He learned his first cords from his Mother, who played guitar at the age of 5, and later by his father who was a banjo picker. He grew up playing bluegrass, country and gospel with his family and friends. But he wanted more and was an avid listener to old radio stations which were playing black blues taking a particular liking to T-Bone Walker as well as jazz and gospel. Taking from all these influences he created his own personal style and when Rockabilly emerged to the music scene, Lonnie was already playing it!
In fact it was Elvis who really turned the young Lonnie's head when he became aware of Presley's music in 1956. At the young age of 15 he formed a rockabilly trio and sang "Blue Suede Shoes", which got a moderately good response. At 17 he brought one of the first Gibson Flying V's (number 7) and by then was getting quite regular work in "honkytonks" and clubs all around Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.
Lonnie with the Gibson Flying V #7
It was during this period that the owner of one of the venues he played at, suggested he shorten his name from McIntosh to Mack! he played for a while with drummer Greg Webster and guitarist Robert Wood. He kept telling anyone who would listen that he had a sound in his mind, and tried everything to create it, including trying a fan first behind, and then in front of his amp. Then one day Mack heard a Magnatone amp, and on hearing it declared, "That was it". He immediately brought one which he used for many years later declaring, "There's nothing like those old Magnatones, nothing with that depth."
Lonnie (RHS) with Flying V & Magnavox Amp
One of the unique things about Lonnie Mac was his reticence to help with biographical information. many interviewers have tried to squeeze information out of him, but he was always said little. When questioned as to whether there were any pre-Memphis recordings, all the Mac would say is, "Just some real . . . I wouldn't really call them records. A couple of them were local stuff." Even today when we read about Lonnie Mac, it can be hard to distinguish between the real and the manufactured information.
Lonnie Mac collectors are still searching to this moment for a copy of "Pistol Packing Mama", allegedly the first 45rpm he made. The label was purported to be Dobbs, a semi-mythical label which was owned by a woman who ran a jukebox supply service to small towns in rural Ohio, and who is supposed to have cut "custom" records for local artists.
Being aware of the "facts" and "fantasies" about his career, I am referring to Lonnie Mac's biography.
In 1963, at the end of another artist's session, Lonnie cut an instrumental version of Chuck Berry's ''Memphis.'' He didn't even know that Fraternity records had issued the single until a friend came to where he was performing at the Peppermint Lounge in Florida and said he'd been listening to it on the car radio all the way down! He contacted Fraternity and had them ship him out a box of the 45's. Memphis had hit the national Top 5 and Lonnie Mack went from being a talented regional roadhouse player to a national star virtually overnight.
Suddenly, he was booked for hundreds of gigs a year, criss-crossing the country in his Cadillac and rushing back to Cincinnati or Nashville to cut new singles. These included Wham, Where There's A Will There's A Way, Chicken Pickin' and many many more records followed. Where There's A Will earned extensive black radio airplay before the DJ's found out Lonnie was white, but there was enough reaction to keep him on the road for another five years of gruelling one - nighters. But more on that later.
Lonnie (centre) with Fraternity boss- Harry Carlson (right)
Yet despite all this his music sales didn't exactly go through the roof. It was bad bad enough that his album The Wham of the Memphis Man, containing the magnificent Memphis and Wham tracks, was released about the time the British music Invasion was gathering steam, leaving his style a little floundering. Ironically as the years went on that album was re-released at least ten times. But, the other issue was that he also suffered from an actual physical image problem. Despite his blisteringly hot guitar work and his decent voice, it was hard for the teens of the period to reconcile what was in fact, a chubby looking country boy when they had the likes of the Beatles and the Stones to look up to.
Then, Fraternity Records died, but Lonnie kept on gigging, and in 1968 a Rolling Stone article stimulated new interest in his music. He signed with Elektra Records and cut three albums. He began playing all the major rock venues, from Fillmore East to Fillmore West. Lonnie also made a guest appearance on the Doors' Morrison Hotel album where you can hear Jim Morrison's urging "Do it, Lonnie! Do It!" He even worked in Elektra's A&R department. When the label merged (and his motorcycle was stolen to top it all off) Lonnie had had enough of the new bureaucracy bullshit and walked out of his prestigious job.
He headed back to rural Indiana, playing back-country bars, going fishing and laying low. After five years of relative obscurity, Lonnie signed with Capitol Records and cut two albums that featured his country influences. He played on the West Coast for a while and even flew to Japan for a Save The Whales benefit. Then he headed to New York to team up with an old friend named Ed Labunski. Labunski was a wealthy jingle writer that wrote "This Bud's For You" who was tired of commercials and wanted to write and play for pleasure. He and Lonnie built a studio in rural Pennsylvania and spent three years organizing and recording a country-rock band called South, which included Buffalo-based keyboardist Stan Szelest, who later played on Lonnie's Alligator debut. Ed and Lonnie had big plans for their partnership, including producing an album by a then-obscure Texas guitarist named Stevie Ray Vaughan. But the plans evaporated when Labunski died in an auto accident, and the South album wasn't released until Lonnie started his own publishing company (Mack's Flying V Music) in 1998.
Disheartened after the loss of his friend, Lonnie headed for Canada and joined the band of veteran rocker Ronnie Hawkins for a summer. He then returned to Indiana without a band and played solo acoustic in his own home town. Lonnie's brother Billy and his good friend and old keyboard player Dumpy Rice started showing up at his gigs. Eventually he had a road worthy band again and started playing the same tri-state border area of Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio as they had back in the early days before Memphis.
Lonnie began his re-emergence on the national scene in November of 1983. At Stevie Ray Vaughan's urging, he relocated from southern Indiana to Austin, Texas. He began jamming with Stevie Ray in local clubs and flying to New York for gigs at the Lone Star and the Ritz. When Alligator Records approached him to do an album, Lonnie immediately called on Vaughan to help him out. The result was Strike Like Lightning (AL 4739), co-produced by Lonnie and Stevie Ray and featuring Stevie's guitar on several tracks. "We went for Lonnie's original sound here," Vaughan said. The joint effort was one of 1985's best selling independent records and topped many critics' "Best Of" list for that year.
Keith Richards, Lonnie Brook & Ron Wood
Lonnie Mac stopped recording in the late 90's with his last album being the 1999 album, South. Not including compilations and re-worked albums he released 12 studio albums (including this one) and two live albums.
Maybe there was a sign things weren't well when, in 2012, Guitarist Travis Wammack asked Mack to join him on a tour to be billed as "Double Mack Attack". Mack declined, stating that he "wasn't in good shape", adding that he was no longer able to stand while playing and that the shape of the Flying V precluded him from playing it while sitting (Wikipedia)
Lonnie Mac died of natural causes on Thursday April 21, 2016 at a medical facility near his home in Smithville, Tennessee. He was 74. He has left a terrific musical legacy, and has part of that legacy lays in the impressive list of guitarists he has had a major influence on not the least being Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ron Wood and Keith Richards, just to name a few.
So, to this album - Memphis Wham!
It comprises all eleven tracks from Lonnie's first album, the 1964 The Wham of that Memphis Man and although the track order on this album has been altered from that original album, they do comprise the first eleven tracks. What the producers of this album did in releasing this album in July of 1999, was to add 11 more tracks of 1963-1967 vintage from both rare singles and previously unreleased outtakes. Now often this is done with what amounts to garbage at the worst, and fillers at the best - but this is all good stuff, sometimes brilliant stuff, that is often equal to the material on the original release. Now that's saying something!
Track Listing:
| 1 | Memphis |
| 2 | Where There's A Will |
| 3 | Wham |
| 4 | I'll Keep You Happy |
| 5 | The Bounce |
| 6 | Baby, What's Wrong |
| 7 | Down And Out |
| 8 | Satisfied |
| 9 | Suzie Q |
| 10 | Why |
| 11 | Down In The Dumps |
| 12 | Rockin' Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu |
| 13 | Gee Baby |
| 14 | Chicken Pickin' |
| 15 | Oh, I Apologize |
| 16 | Say Something Nice To Me |
| 17 | From Me To You |
| 18 | Turn On Your Love Light |
| 19 | The Freeze |
| 20 | Farther On Up The Road |
| 21 | Cry, Cry, Cry |
| 22 | Save Your Money |
| 23 | Tension (Part 1) |
| 24 | Tension (Part |
The personnel on that initial album that comprised of tracks 1 to 11, were:
- Lonnie Mack - guitar, vocals
- Wayne Bullock - bass, keyboards
- David Byrd - keyboards
- Truman Fields - keyboards
- Ron Grayson - drums
- Don Henry - sax
- Marv Lieberman - sax
- Irv Russotto - sax
- Bill Jones - bass
It's probably not a surprise that the producers of this album promoted Memphis to track 1. There is just so much to be said of this track. So if you just want the abridged story, it's simple. It is a pulse driven, amazing electro-blues instrumental, that has strong elements of Chuck Berry's Memphis Tennessee, but is a very strong and unique adaption.
The longer story goes like this. The track had its genesis in March of 1963 when Mack was actually in a recording session backing the group, the Charmaines. It appears that Mack and his band were offered the remaining twenty minutes that were left of the rental time that had been paid for, for the Charmaines recording session. Now Lonnie was taken by Chuck Berries 1959 vocal/guitar track Memphis, Tennessee. Never imagining for a moment what he recorded would be released, he and the muso's he was with jumped into a version of Memphis Tennessee that Mack had been adapting, particularly around the improvised the guitar solo he had developed when ever since his keyboardist, who usually sang the tune, missed a club date a few years earlier.
His instrumental version turned out to be a crowd pleaser and he quickly adopted into his his live act. Mack called it "Memphis".
As recorded in 1963, "Memphis" featured a then-unique combination of several key elements, including seven distinct sections and an unusually fast twelve-bar blues solo, all set to a rock beat. "An extended guitar solo exploiting the entire range of the instrument rings in the climax of the song in the fifth section. Lonnie Mack begins this portion by quoting several measures of the riff one octave higher than before. From there, he breaks into his choicest licks, including double-picking and pulling-off techniques — all with driving, complicated rhythms and technical precision".[Wikipedia]
Now it was some 6 months later when "Memphis" was first broadcast and in fact Lonnie Mac had totally forgotten that impromptu recording session recording session In fact he was on a national tour when he was informed that it had been released and was racing up the charts.
By late June, Memphis had risen to No. 4 on Billboard's R&B chart and No. 5 on Billboard's pop chart. In fact it was remarkably, only the fourth rock guitar instrumental to penetrate Billboard's "Top 5". The track sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.