Danny Gatton
Encyclopedia
Danny Gatton was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

 who fused rockabilly, jazz, and country styles to create his own distinctive style of playing. A biography, Unfinished Business: The Life and Times of Danny Gatton by Ralph Heibutzki
Ralph Heibutzki
Ralph Heibutzki is a musician from Michigan. He is the author of Unfinished Business: The Life and Times of Danny Gatton.-External links:**...

, was published in 2003. It has a voluminous discography. Gatton was ranked 63rd on Rolling Stone magazine's
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

 100 Greatest Guitarists of all Time in 2003. On May 26, 2010, Gibson.com ranked Gatton as the 27th best guitarist of all time.

Early life

Gatton was born in Washington, D.C. on September 4, 1945. His father, Daniel W. Gatton Sr., was a rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...

ist known for his unique percussive style, who left his musical career to raise his family in a more stable profession. The younger Gatton grew up to share his father's passion for the instrument.

Career

Danny Gatton began his career playing in bands while still a teenager. He began to attract wider interest in the 1970s while playing guitar and banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

 for the group Liz Meyer & Friends. He made his name as a performer in the Washington, DC, area during the late 1970s and 1980s, both as a solo performer and with his Redneck Jazz Explosion, in which he would trade licks
Lick (music)
In popular music genres such as rock or jazz music, a lick is "a stock pattern or phrase" consisting of a short series of notes that is used in solos and melodic lines...

 with virtuoso pedal steel
Pedal steel guitar
The pedal steel guitar is a type of electric guitar that uses a metal bar to "fret" or shorten the length of the strings, rather than fingers on strings as with a conventional guitar. Unlike other types of steel guitar, it also uses pedals and knee levers to affect the pitch, hence the name "pedal"...

 player Buddy Emmons
Buddy Emmons
Buddy Emmons , is an American guitarist.Emmons has been called "The World's Foremost Steel Guitarist" and his talent is greatly admired by fellow steel guitarists...

 over a tight bass-drums rhythm which drew from blues, country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

, bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

 and rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...

 influences. He also backed Robert Gordon
Robert Gordon (disambiguation)
Robert Gordon may refer to:* Sir Robert Gordon, 1st Baronet , see Gordon Baronets* Robert Gordon , American Canadian football player* Robert Gordon , president and chair of Canada Basketball...

 and Roger Miller
Roger Miller
Roger Dean Miller was an American singer, songwriter, musician and actor, best known for his honky tonk-influenced novelty songs...

. He contributed a cover of "Apricot Brandy", a song by Elektra Records
Elektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....

-supergroup Rhinoceros
Rhinoceros (band)
Rhinoceros was a rock band established in 1967 by Elektra Records as that label's intended supergroup. The band, while well respected in many circles, did not live up to the record label's expectations...

, to the 1990 compilation album Rubáiyát
Rubáiyát
Rubáiyát is a compilation album, released in 1990 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Elektra Records record label. The concept was to feature present-day Elektra artists covering songs from the historic catalogue of recordings of Elektra Records and its sister label Asylum Records.Two...

.

Playing style

Gatton's playing combined musical styles such as jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 and rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...

 in an innovative fashion, and he was known by some as "the Telemaster" (a portmanteau of "Telecaster", Gatton's guitar of choice, and "Master"). He was also called "the world's greatest unknown guitarist". His most common nickname was "The Humbler", owing to his ability to "humble" or out-play anyone willing to go up against him in "head-cutting" jam sessions. It was Amos Garrett, guitar player for Maria Muldaur, who nicknamed Gatton "The Humbler". After a successful gig, Garrett would pull out a tape of Gatton and tell his band, "You think we played well tonight. Let's take a minute to listen to the Humble-lizer." A photo published in the October 2007 issue of Guitar Player magazine shows Gatton playing in front of a neon sign that says "Victims Wanted".

However, he never achieved the commercial success that his talent arguably deserved. His album 88 Elmira Street was up for a 1990 Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

 for the song "Elmira Street Boogie" in the category Best Rock Instrumental Performance, but was beaten by Eric Johnson
Eric Johnson
Eric Johnson is an American guitarist. Though he is best known for his success in the instrumental rock format, Johnson regularly incorporates jazz, fusion, gospel and country and western music into his recordings...

 with "Cliffs of Dover
Cliffs of Dover (song)
"Cliffs of Dover" is an instrumental composition by guitarist Eric Johnson which appeared on his 1990 Ah Via Musicom album. The album version of the song is composed in the key of G major, the song was played with a Gibson ES-335 through a B.K. Butler Tube Driver and an Echoplex plugged into a...

".

His skills were most appreciated by his peers such as Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

, Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...

, Steve Earle
Steve Earle
Stephen Fain "Steve" Earle is an American singer-songwriter known for his rock and Texas Country as well as his political views. He is also a producer, author, a political activist, and an actor, and has written and directed a play....

, and his childhood idol Les Paul
Les Paul
Lester William Polsfuss —known as Les Paul—was an American jazz and country guitarist, songwriter and inventor. He was a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which made the sound of rock and roll possible. He is credited with many recording innovations...

. During his career, Gatton appeared on stage with guitar heroes such as Alvin Lee
Alvin Lee
Alvin Lee is an English rock guitarist and singer. He began playing guitar at the age of 13, and with Leo Lyons formed the core of the band Ten Years After in 1960...

 and Jimmie Vaughan
Jimmie Vaughan
James Lawrence "Jimmie" Vaughan is an American blues rock guitarist and singer from Dallas, Texas, United States. He is the older brother of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan....

, the latter literally walking in one night on a Gatton club gig. There is also an apocryphal rumor about an on-stage "head-cutting" jam between Gatton and fellow Washington DC-area resident (and Telecaster player who also held the title of The Greatest Unknown Guitarist) Roy Buchanan
Roy Buchanan
Roy Buchanan was an American guitarist and blues musician. A pioneer of the Telecaster sound, Buchanan was a sideman and solo artist, with two gold albums early in his career, and two later solo albums that made it on to the Billboard chart. Despite never having achieved stardom, he is still...

. (Gatton had roomed with Buchanan in Nashville in the mid '60s and they became frequent "jamming partners", according to Guitar Player Magazine's October 2007 issue). He also performed with old teenage friend Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen (from Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna) as "Jack and the Degenerates". Those recordings were never commercially released, but live tapes are in circulation. In 1993, Gatton was invited by rocker Chris Isaak
Chris Isaak
Christopher Joseph "Chris" Isaak is an American rock musician and occasional actor.-Early life:Isaak was born in Stockton, California, the son of Dorothy , a potato chip factory worker, and Joe Isaak, a forklift driver. Isaak's mother is Italian American, originating from Genoa...

 to record tracks for Isaak's San Francisco Days CD. Reports of where Gatton's playing can be heard on the CD vary, with unconfirmed reports placing him on either "Can't Do A Thing (To Stop Me)", "5:15" or "Beautiful Houses". Gatton reportedly brought a customized Fender Telecaster and Stratocaster to the recording session.

He usually played a 1953 Fender Telecaster (Fender now manufactures a replica of his heavily customized instrument), with Joe Barden pick-ups and Fender Super 250L's, or Nickel Plated Steel (.010 to .046 with a .015 for the G) strings. For a slide
Slide guitar
Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...

, Gatton was known for using a beer bottle or mug (still half full of beer), without regard to whether it might spill all over stage or his guitar. During a 1991 performance on Austin City Limits
Austin City Limits
Austin City Limits is an American public television music program recorded live in Austin, Texas by Public Broadcasting Service Public television member station KLRU, and broadcast on many PBS stations around the United States...

, he followed this by wiping the guitar neck with a rag, then holding the rag between his fingers and the frets, all the while playing flawlessly. In the March 1989 issue of Guitar Player magazine, he said he preferred to use an Alka Seltzer bottle or long 6L6 vacuum tube as a slide, but that audiences liked the beer bottle. He did, however, only play slide overhand, citing his earlier training in steel guitar [Guitar Player, March 1989]

He always played with a jazz-style teardrop pick
Guitar pick
A guitar pick is a plectrum used for guitars. A pick is generally made of one uniform material; examples include plastic, nylon, rubber, felt, tortoiseshell, wood, metal, glass, and stone...

, and was capable of intricate passages combining Bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

, bebop, and garage sounds, executed with amazing clarity and at dizzying speeds. His picking technique was a hybrid combination
Hybrid picking
Hybrid picking is a guitar-playing technique that involves picking with a pick and one or more fingers alternately or simultaneously. Hybrid picking allows guitar players who use a pick to perform music which would normally require fingerstyle playing. It also facilitates wide string leaps Hybrid...

 of pick and fingers, primarily his middle and ring fingers on his right hand. The basis of his picking technique was using banjo rolls; he was an accomplished banjo player and from that he learned the traditional (Scruggs
Earl Scruggs
Earl Eugene Scruggs is an American musician noted for perfecting and popularizing a 3-finger banjo-picking style that is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music...

 style) right-hand technique. His forward roll consisted of a pick downstroke, then middle finger, then ring finger. His backward roll consisted of middle finger, then a pick upstroke, then a pick downstroke. He possessed a classical guitar left hand technique, thumb behind the neck, fretting with arched fingers.

Also among his admirers are Les Paul
Les Paul
Lester William Polsfuss —known as Les Paul—was an American jazz and country guitarist, songwriter and inventor. He was a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which made the sound of rock and roll possible. He is credited with many recording innovations...

, James Burton
James Burton
James Burton is an American guitarist. A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since 2001 , Burton has also been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame...

, Lenny Breau
Lenny Breau
Leonard Harold "Lenny" Breau was a musician, guitar player, and music educator. He was known for blending many styles of music including: jazz, country, classical and flamenco guitar...

, Joe Bonamassa
Joe Bonamassa
Joe Bonamassa is an American blues rock guitarist and singer.-Early life:Bonamassa was born and raised in New Hartford, United States. His parents owned and ran a guitar shop. He is a fourth-generation musician...

 (whom Danny mentored when Joe was eleven years old), Vince Gill
Vince Gill
Vincent Grant "Vince" Gill is an American neotraditional country singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He has achieved commercial success and fame both as frontman to the country rock band Pure Prairie League in the 1970s, and as a solo artist beginning in 1983, where his talents as a...

, Evan Johns (of "Evan Johns and His H-Bombs"), Chris Cheney
Chris Cheney
Christopher John Cheney is the guitarist, main songwriter and lead vocalist in the Australian rock band, The Living End. His trademark guitar is a Gretsch White Falcon and he uses mainly distortion and modulation effects...

, Bill Kirchen
Bill Kirchen
Bill Kirchen is an American rockabilly guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was the guitarist with the original Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen from 1967 to the mid 1970s, although, in reality, his time with the Commander accounts for only a portion of his career...

, Albert Lee
Albert Lee
Albert William Lee, born 21 December 1943 in Leominster, Herefordshire, England, is an English guitarist known for his fingerstyle and hybrid picking technique. Lee has worked both in the studio and on tour with some of the most famous musicians which stretch through a very wide of genres...

, Steve Vai
Steve Vai
Steven Siro "Steve" Vai is a three time Grammy Award-winning American guitarist, songwriter and producer who has sold over 15 million albums. Steve Vai is widely known as a flamboyant guitar virtuoso....

, Buckethead
Buckethead
Brian Carroll , better known by his stage name Buckethead, is a guitarist and multi instrumentalist who has worked within several genres of music. He has released 34 studio albums, four special releases and one EP. He has performed on over 50 more albums by other artists...

, Arlen Roth
Arlen Roth
Arlen Roth is an American guitarist. His first solo album won the Montreaux Critics' Award for Best Instrumental Album of the Year in 1978. He was Guitar Player magazine's top columnist from 1982 to 1992...

, Ricky Skaggs
Ricky Skaggs
Rickie Lee "Ricky" Skaggs is a country and bluegrass singer, musician, producer, and composer. He primarily plays mandolin; however, he also plays fiddle, guitar, and banjo.-Early career:...

, Slash
Slash (musician)
Saul Hudson , known by his stage name Slash, is a British-American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the former lead guitarist of the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During his later years with Guns N'...

 ("Guns N' Roses"), and Richie Sambora
Richie Sambora
Richard Stephen "Richie" Sambora is an American rock guitarist, producer, musician, singer, and songwriter who is the longtime lead guitarist of the rock band, Bon Jovi. He and frontman Jon Bon Jovi form the primary songwriting unit of the band...

.

Suicide

On October 4, 1994, Gatton locked himself in his garage in Newburg, Maryland
Newburg, Maryland
Newburg is an unincorporated community in Charles County, Maryland, United States. Newburg has two stores, a lodge hall, a fire department, as well as the Piccowaxen Middle School and Dr. Thomas L. Higdon Elementary, both serving the entire Cobb Neck peninsula ....

 and shot himself. He left behind no explanation. In retrospect of his suicide, people around him have suggested that he may have gone in and out of depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...

 for many years.

On January 10, 11, and 12, 1995, Tramps club in New York organized a three-night Tribute to Danny Gatton featuring dozens of Gatton's musical admirers, the highlight of which was a twenty-minute performance by Les Paul, James Burton, and Albert Lee. Those shows (with all musicians performing for free) raised $25,000 for Gatton's widow and daughter.

Discography

  • 1975 - American Music
  • 1978 - Redneck Jazz
  • 1987 - Unfinished Business
  • 1990 - Blazing Telecasters (live 4/27/84)
  • 1991 - 88 Elmira St.
  • 1992 - New York Stories
  • 1993 - Cruisin' Deuces
  • 1994 - Relentless (with Joey DeFrancesco
    Joey DeFrancesco
    Joey DeFrancesco is an American jazz organist, trumpeter, and vocalist. Down Beat's Critics and Readers Poll selected him as the top jazz organist every year since 2003.DeFrancesco was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania...

    )
  • 1995 - Redneck Jazz Explosion (live 12/30-31/78)
  • 1996 - The Humbler (with Robert Gordon
    Robert Gordon (musician)
    Robert Gordon is an American rockabilly musician. Gordon rose to fame performing in several genres including alternative rock, punk rock, and rock and roll.- Early days:...

    )
  • 1998 - In Concert 9/9/94
  • 1998 - Untouchable
  • 1998 - Portraits
  • 1999 - Anthology
  • 2004 - Funhouse (live 6/10-11/88)
  • 2005 - Oh No! More Blazing Guitars (with Tom Principato)
  • 2006 - Redneck Jazz Explosion, Vol. 2 (live 12/30-31/1978)
  • 2007 - Live in 1977: The Humbler Stakes His Claim

External links

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