httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkBqTWBIkKw
Photo Lonnie Mack, a guitarist and singer whose impassioned, fast-picking style on the early 1960s instrumentals “Memphis” and “Wham!” became a model for the blues-rock lead-guitar style and a seminal influence on a long list of British and American artists, died on Thursday in Nashville.
Mr. Mack was a country boy from southern Indiana who grew up on the Grand Ole Opry, rhythm and blues radio, and the gospel music he sang at his local church, influences that he blended as both a singer and guitarist.
With a group of musicians sometimes billed as the Twilighters, he played clubs and roadhouses in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky and did session work at Fraternity, a small Cincinnati label that recorded “Memphis,” “Wham!” and one of Mr. Mack’s compositions, “Chicken Pickin.'”.
Several of his instrumentals, as well as the soul vocals “W T’s a Will,” “Satisfied” and “Why?” were collected on “The Wham of That Memphis Man!” The album was reissued as a collector’s edition, with additional tracks, by the Elektra label in 1969.In the mid-1960s Mr. Mack and his band members worked as session musicians at King Records in Cincinnati, playing on recordings by the Hank Ballard, James Brown and Freddie King.
A rave review of “The Wham of That Memphis Man!” in Rolling Stone magazine in 1968 led to bookings at the Fillmore East and West and a contract with Elektra, w he recorded three albums and played lead and bass guitar on the song “Roadhouse Blues,” by the Doors.
He is survived by two sisters, Audrey Pratt and Burlis Britton; a brother, Bill McIntosh; three sons, George Mack, Harry McIntosh and Eric Wilson; two daughters, Holly McIntosh and Lonita Coldwell; 8 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.