Lonnie Mack - Live From Louisville 1992 [2LP]

Live From Louisville 1992 catches Lonnie Mack doing the thing almost nobody else in blues rock could do quite like him, stretched across 2LP and lit up by a Flying V he never put down.

Mack had already changed guitar playing before most of the men who cite him as an influence were born. His 1963 instrumental Memphis became a surprise Top Five hit, and the Bigsby bar he rigged to his Gibson Flying V on the follow-up single Wham got nicknamed the whammy bar by a generation of players who never forgot where they'd heard it first, Stevie Ray Vaughan most vocally among them. This 1992 recording, authorized by his estate and rough around the edges in exactly the way a real club tape should be, was his first official live release in over a year, and it captures him still doing what made him legendary.

Camp Washington Chili bleeds into If You Have to Know across ten unhurried minutes of soloing, Stop stretches even further, and Memphis and Wham get joined into a single eight-minute run that finally lets his signature songs breathe live. Oreo Cookie Blues is delivered solo once the band steps off, and Cincinnati Jail closes the night at full boil.

Recording quality be damned, this is the guitarist Clapton, Beck, and Hendrix all pointed to, caught exactly where he belonged.