Lonnie Mack born 18 July 1941

Lonnie McIntosh (July 18, 1941 – April 21, 2016), known as Lonnie Mack, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was an influential trailblazer of blues rock music and rock guitar soloing.

Lonnie was born in 1941 in Harrison, Indiana - some twenty miles west of Cincinnati. From family sing-alongs he developed a love of country music, while he absorbed rhythm and blues from the

late-night black radio stations and gospel from his local church. Starting off with a few chords that he learned from his mother, Lonnie gradually blended all the sounds he heard around him into his own individual style.

He began playing professionally in his early teens (he quit school after a fight with his sixth-grade teacher), working clubs and roadhouses around the tri-state border area of Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. In 1958, he bought the guitar he still plays today - Gibson Flying V serial number 7. In addition to his live gigs, Lonnie began playing sessions for the King and Fraternity labels in Cincinnati. He recorded with blues and r&b greats like Hank Ballard, Freddie King and James Brown.
 

                              

 

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 had issued the single until he heard it on the

radio, and within a few weeks "Memphis" had hit the national Top 5! 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, crisscrossing the country in his Cadillac and rushing back to Cincinnati or Nashville to cut new singles. "Wham!," "Where There's A Will There's A Way," "Chicken Pickin'" and a dozen other records followed "Memphis." None sold as well as his first hit, but there was enough reaction to keep him on the road for another five years of grueling one-nighters.

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. Elektra also reissued his original Fraternity LP, The Wham Of That Memphis

Man (now available on Alligator Records). 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. You can hear Lonnie's guitar solo on "Roadhouse Blues," preceded by Jim Morrison's urgent "Do it, Lonnie! Do it!" He even worked in Elektra's A&R department. When the label merged with giant Warner Brothers, however, Lonnie grew disgusted with the new bureaucracy and walked out of his prestigious job. The seventies would turn out to be Mack’s lost decade. Save for two country releases in 1977, nothing was added to his discography between the years of 1972 and 1984.

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. Strike Likr Lightning (AL 4739), for Alligator records was released co-produced by Lonnie and Stevie Ray and featuring Stevie's guitar on several tracks. The joint effort was one of 1985's best selling independent records and topped many critics' "Best Of" list for that year. Lonnie Mack's career traces the history of rock and roll.

Drawing from influences as diverse as rhythm and blues, country, gospel and rockabilly, Lonnie has won the hearts of fans worldwide. He is revered by a new generation of rock performers. He has played     everywhere from tiny roadhouse clubs to huge rock showcases and national television. He has recorded for major labels and indies alike.

In 1986, Mack joined Buchanan and Dickey Betts for "The Great American Guitar Assault Tour". He released three more albums over the next four years, including his last, in 1990, a blues-rock LP entitled Lonnie Mack Live! – Attack of the Killer V!. Then, worn from the constant touring required to sell records, he ended his recording career. However, he continued to play the roadhouse and festival circuits at his own pace through 2004. 

His last commercial performances were in 2004. He remained retired except for a handful of isolated special appearances over the next few years: Mack died from "natural causes" on April 21, 2016 (age 74) at a hospital near his log-cabin home in rural Tennessee. In the media, his death was overshadowed by that of rock superstar Prince, who died on the same day. Mack was buried in Aurora, Indiana.

(Edited from Wikipedia & rockabilly.com)