Sonny Landreth

electric blues · blues · americana

Sonny Landreth is an American blues, roots and zydeco-influenced slide guitarist, born on February 1, 1951 in Canton, Mississippi and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana, which has anchored his career ever since; he now lives in nearby Breaux Bridge. He took up guitar at twelve after studying trumpet in school band and orchestra, and as a young player worked with Creole and Cajun musicians, becoming the first white member of Clifton Chenier's Red Hot Louisiana Band. That grounding produced the blues-and-zydeco hybrid sometimes called slydeco. His technique is unusual even among slide players: he wears the slide on his little finger and frets notes, chords and chord fragments behind it with his remaining fingers, while tapping, slapping and picking with his right hand. He plays Fender Stratocasters through Dumble amplifiers. The discography begins with Blues Attack (1981) and Way Down in Louisiana (1985) and runs through Outward Bound (1992), South of I-10 (1995), Levee Town (2000), The Road We're On (2003), the live Grant Street (2005), From the Reach (2008), the largely instrumental Elemental Journey (2012), Bound by the Blues (2015), Recorded Live in Lafayette (2017) and Blacktop Run (2020). He spent years in John Hiatt's band, notably on Slow Turning, and has recorded or performed with John Mayall, Mark Knopfler, Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer Band, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes and Gov't Mule. Eric Clapton, who has called him one of the most advanced and most underestimated guitarists working, invited him to the Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2019. Landreth has two Grammy nominations, was named the Americana Music Association's Instrumentalist of the Year in 2005, and won the Blues Music Award for Instrumentalist - Guitar in 2016.

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