Wednesday, March 19, 2008

The Humbler

Every music fan has his or her list of obscure or semi-obscure musicians who deserved to be big stars but never were: You’ll find Richard Thompson, R. Stevie Moore, Giant Sand, NRBQ, The Chills, Ian Dury, The Elvis Brothers, The Feelies, Eugenius, The Good Rats and a whole bunch of others on mine.

 But none less deserved a lack of success more than Marylander Danny Gatton.

 Gatton was once featured on the cover of Guitar Player magazine with the headline “The World’s Greatest Unknown Guitarist.” In a business known more for hype than reality, the headline was dead accurate. No less a judge than Les Paul, who pioneered both modern recording techniques and modern electric guitars — his namesake six-string still sets the standard — named Danny one of the two finest  guitarists he had ever seen. (Hendrix was the other one.) “Danny Gatton can play like anybody,” he noted. “No one can play like Danny Gatton.”

 Equally at home with blues, jazz, rock and rockabilly, Gatton toiled for years in area bar bands. His one trip to hang with the studio superstars in LA was met with suspicion by them because of his drug habits (he didn’t do any). During his rare national tours, often part of a backing band (Robert Gordon’s band was one), local hotshot guitarists would crowd the first few rows to watch him play. They knew what was going on, and nicknamed Gatton “The Humbler” because he could outplay every one of them.

 The first time I saw Danny was in some dive bar in Georgetown, long since gone, in 1977. New to the area, I saw an article in the Washington Post recommending him, and went to check him out.

 He was overweight with greasy Elvis sideburns, a cigarette hanging from his lip, and no stage presence whatsoever. The band started playing “Mystery Train,” the old Elvis tune, and when it got to the solo Gatton took off.

 He played every lick Scotty Moore, Elvis’ old guitarist, had ever played, twice as fast as Scotty played them,  a Wes Montgomery chord solo (though three times as fast as Wes could have done it), a double-time cycle of fifths in the relative minor, pieces of “Strangers in the Night” and Zorba the Greek,” and half a dozen other things that flew by so fast I never had a chance to recognize them.

 And that was the first song. Three songs later, I realized my beer, no longer cold, was sitting untouched in front of me. I saw him many times after that until he committed suicide.

 Recommended albums: every single one of them. 

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