Credit: Sonny Landreth | photo by Brittany Salerno for WXPN
WXPN’s local music blog The Key shared a free download of Sonny Landreth’s “Native Son” today, recorded live for World Cafe during Sense of Place: Lafayette. From The Key:
Born Clyde Vernon Landreth, guitarist Sonny Landreth is a guitarist’s guitarist. Born in Mississippi, his family settled in Lafayette, Louisiana. His first professional gig was as a guitarist with the legendary Clifton Chenier in the Red Beans and Rice Revue in the Seventies, before he stepped out on his own as a solo artist. Landreth released two albums in the Eighties which led to his being called upon by John Hiatt who enlisted his services on Hiatt’s classic 1988 Slow Turning album. A pair of excellent albums in the Nineties, 1992′s Outward Bound, and 1995′s South Of I-10, garnered Landreth even more praise and notoriety, and he went on to collaborate with Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Buckwheat Zydeco, and Jimmy Buffett.
Landreth is a masterful slide guitar player. Influenced by the blues, zydeco and even Southern rock, the guitarist’s best known songs like “Congo Square,” “When You’re Away,” “Levee Town,” and “Hell At Home,” exemplify his virtuosity, as well as the ability to seamlessly weave various styles of Southern music. Landreth, known as the “King of Slydeco,” was recently on World Cafe with host David Dye during the Cafe’s Sense of Place – Lafayette series. Performing at World Cafe Live, Dye interviewed Landreth about his influences and working with Clifton Chenier.
Listen to the entire interview here, and download a blistering live version of “Native Stepson” below.