- Danny Gatton (September 4, 1945 – October 4, 1994) was an American guitarist who fused rockabilly, jazz, and country to create his own distinctive style. When Rolling Stone magazine selected the 100 Greatest Guitarists of all Time in 2003, senior editor David Fricke ranked Gatton 63rd on his ballot. On May 26, 2010, Gibson.com ranked Gatton as the 27th best guitarist of all.
- Danny doing his thing. Shot at 'Birchmere' outside Washington DC. I think it was 1989.
- Danny Gatton Biography
- Danny Gatton Redneck Jazz Raritan
- Danny Gatton Redneck Jazz Rara
- Danny Gatton Redneck Jazz Rare Earth
Photo by John Halpern Danny Gatton was born 75 years ago today. Gatton was a guitarist who fused rockabilly, jazz and country to create his own distinctive style. Born in Washington, D.C., his father, Daniel W. Gatton Sr., was a rhythm guitarist known for his unique percussive style, who left his musical career to raise his family in a more stable profession. Young Danny grew up to share his.
Danny Gatton | |
---|---|
Birth name | Daniel Wood Gatton |
Born | September 4, 1945 Washington, D.C. |
Died | October 4, 1994 (aged 49) Newburg, Maryland |
Genres | Blues, rockabilly, jazz |
Occupation(s) | Musician |
Instruments | Guitar |
Years active | 1960–1994 |
Website | dannygatton.com |
Notable instruments | |
Fender Telecaster |
Danny Gatton Biography
Danny Gatton (September 4, 1945 – October 4, 1994) was an American guitarist who fused rockabilly, jazz, and country to create his own distinctive style. When Rolling Stone magazine selected the 100 Greatest Guitarists of all Time in 2003, senior editor David Fricke ranked Gatton 63rd on his ballot.[1] On May 26, 2010, Gibson.com ranked Gatton as the 27th best guitarist of all time.[2]
Early life
Gatton was born in Washington, D.C. on September 4, 1945. His father, Daniel W. Gatton Sr., was a rhythm guitarist known for his unique percussive style, who left his musical career to raise his family in a more stable profession. The younger Gatton grew up to share his father's passion for the instrument.
Career
Danny Gatton began his career playing in bands while still a teenager. He began to attract wider interest in the 1970s while playing guitar and banjo for the group Liz Meyer & Friends. He made his name as a performer in the Washington, DC, area during the late 1970s and 1980s, both as a solo performer and with his Redneck Jazz Explosion, in which he traded licks with virtuoso pedal steel player Buddy Emmons over a tight bass-drums rhythm that drew from blues, country, bebop, and rockabilly influences. He also backed Robert Gordon and Roger Miller. He contributed a cover of Apricot Brandy, a song by Elektra Records-supergroup Rhinoceros, to the 1990 compilation album Rubáiyát.
Playing style
Gatton's playing combined musical styles such as jazz, blues and rockabilly in an innovative fashion, and he was known by some as the Telemaster. He was also called the world's greatest unknown guitarist, and The Humbler, from his ability to out-play anyone willing to go up against him in 'head-cutting' jam sessions.[citation needed]Amos Garrett, guitar player for Maria Muldaur, gave Gatton the nickname. A photo published in the October 2007 issue of Guitar Player magazine shows Gatton playing in front of a neon sign that says 'Victims Wanted.'
However, he never achieved the commercial success that his talent arguably deserved. His album 88 Elmira Street was up for a 1990 Grammy Award for the song Elmira Street Boogie in the category Best Rock Instrumental Performance, but the award went to Eric Johnson for Cliffs of Dover.
His skills were most appreciated by his peers such as Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, and his childhood idol Les Paul. During his career, Gatton appeared on stage with guitar heroes such as Alvin Lee and Jimmie Vaughan. Gatton had roomed with Roy Buchanan in Nashville, Tennessee in the mid '60s and they became frequent jamming partners, according to Guitar Player magazine's October 2007 issue. He also performed with old teenage friend Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen (from Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna) as Jack and the Degenerates. Those recordings were never released, but live tapes are in circulation. In 1993, rocker Chris Isaak invited Gatton to record tracks for Isaak's San Francisco Days CD. Reports of where Gatton's playing can be heard on the CD vary, with unconfirmed reports placing him on either Can't Do a Thing (To Stop Me), 5:15 or Beautiful Houses.[citation needed]
He usually played a 1953 Fender Telecaster with Joe Barden pickups and Fender Super 250Ls, or Nickel Plated Steel (.010 to .046 with a .015 for the G) strings. (Fender now makes a replica of his heavily customized instrument.) For a slide, Gatton sometimes used a beer bottle or mug. In the March 1989 issue of Guitar Player magazine, he said he preferred to use an Alka-Seltzer bottle or long 6L6 vacuum tube as a slide, but that audiences liked the beer bottle. He did, however, only play slide overhand, citing his earlier training in steel guitar [Guitar Player, March 1989]. Among amplifiers Gatton is known to have used are a 1959 Fender Bassman amp and a heavily customized blackface Fender Vibrolux Reverb]].[citation needed]
After using Fender picks, he switched to a jazz-style teardrop pick after Buchanan had recommended them to him. He was capable of intricate passages combining Bluegrass, bebop, and garage sounds, executed with amazing clarity and at dizzying speeds. His picking technique was a hybrid combination of pick and fingers, primarily his middle and ring fingers on his right hand. The basis of his picking technique was using banjo rolls; he was an accomplished banjo player and from that he learned the traditional (Scruggs style) right-hand technique. His forward roll consisted of a pick downstroke, then middle finger, then ring finger. His backward roll consisted of middle finger, then a pick upstroke, then a pick downstroke. He possessed a classical guitar left hand technique, thumb behind the neck, fretting with arched fingers.[citation needed]
Among his admirers are Les Paul, James Burton, Lenny Breau, Joe Bonamassa (whom Danny mentored when Joe was eleven years old), Vince Gill, Evan Johns (of Evan Johns and His H-Bombs), Chris Cheney, Bill Kirchen, Albert Lee, Steve Vai, Buckethead, Arlen Roth, Johnny Hiland, Ricky Skaggs, Slash, and Richie Sambora.[3]
Final years, death and legacy
Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Danny worked closely with Fender to create his very own signature model guitar – The Danny Gatton Signature Telecaster, released in 1990.[4] On October 4, 1994, Gatton locked himself in his garage in Newburg, Maryland and shot himself. He left behind no explanation.[3] Members of his family and close friends believe Danny had silently suffered from depression for many years.[5]
On January 10, 11 and 12, 1995, Tramps club in New York organized a three-night tribute to Danny Gatton featuring dozens of Gatton's musical admirers, the highlight of which was a twenty-minute performance by Les Paul, James Burton, Arlen Roth and Albert Lee.[6] Those shows (with all musicians performing for free) raised $25,000 for Gatton's wife and daughter.
Danny Gatton has been described as possessing an extraordinary proficiency on his instrument, 'a living treasury of American musical styles.'[7] In 2009, John Previti, who played bass guitar with Danny for 18 years stated: 'You know, when he played country music, it sounded like all he played was country music. When he played jazz, it sounded like that's all he played, rockabilly, old rock and roll, soul music. You know, he called himself a Whitman sampler of music'[5] Legendary guitarist Steve Vai reckons Danny 'comes closer than anyone else to being the best guitar player that ever lived.'[8] Accomplished guitar veteran Albert Lee said of Gatton: 'Here’s a guy who’s got it all.”[9]
Since the advent of YouTube, decades-old bootleg performances of Danny have garnered millions of views,[10] eliciting high praise from fans worldwide.[11]
Discography
- 1975 – American Music
- 1978 – Redneck Jazz
- 1987 – Unfinished Business
- 1990 – Blazing Telecasters (live April 27, 1984)
- 1991 – 88 Elmira St.
- 1992 – New York Stories with Joshua Redman, Roy Hargrove, Bobby Watson, & Franck Amsallem
- 1993 – Cruisin' Deuces
- 1993 – Toolin' Around with Arlen Roth
- 1994 – Relentless (with Joey DeFrancesco)
- 1995 – Redneck Jazz Explosion (live December 30 & 31, 1978)
- 1996 – The Humbler (with Robert Gordon)
- 1998 – In Concert 9/9/94
- 1998 – Untouchable
- 1998 – Portraits
- 1999 – Anthology
- 2004 – Funhouse (live June 10 & 11, 1988)
- 2005 – Oh No! More Blazing Telecasters (with Tom Principato)
- 2006 – Redneck Jazz Explosion, Vol. 2 (live December 30 & 31, 1978)
- 2007 – Live in 1977: The Humbler Stakes His Claim
- 2011 – Blue Skies Calling, a CD by Boy Wells includes nearly an hour of Gatton and Wells playing in his living room. 'Danny called me before he died and asked me to put a vocal tape together for his label at the time. He needed a singer after his singer, Billy Windsor, had passed. He remained a friend, a good one all those years. This lesson was in the late '70s; it's me and Danny in the living room of his house on Holly Lane in Indian Head, Maryland. It's killer stuff.'[12]
See also
References
- ↑'The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time'. Rolling Stone. Retrieved October 30, 2011.<templatestyles src='Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css'></templatestyles>
- ↑'Top 50 Guitarists of All Time – 30 to 21'. Gibson. Retrieved October 30, 2011.<templatestyles src='Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css'></templatestyles>
- ↑ 3.03.1Heibutzki, Ralph (2003). Unfinished Business: The Life & Times of Danny Gatton. Backbeat Books, San Francisco. ISBN0-87930-748-X.<templatestyles src='Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css'></templatestyles>
- ↑'The Definitive Danny Gatton Web Site'. Dannygatton.com. Retrieved February 24, 2014.<templatestyles src='Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css'></templatestyles>
- ↑ 5.05.1'Danny Gatton: 'World's Greatest Unknown Guitarist''. NPR. October 4, 2009. Retrieved February 24, 2014.<templatestyles src='Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css'></templatestyles>
- ↑Herndon, David (January 9, 1995). 'A Tribute to Danny Gatton'. Newsday. Retrieved January 4, 2011.<templatestyles src='Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css'></templatestyles>
- ↑'Chairman Ralph's Ministry Of Truth'. Chairmanralph.com. Retrieved October 26, 2015.<templatestyles src='Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css'></templatestyles>
- ↑'Playlist: Danny Gatton « Guitar Aficionado'. Guitaraficionado.com. November 15, 2011. Retrieved February 24, 2014.<templatestyles src='Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css'></templatestyles>
- ↑'Albert Lee Interview : Guitar Interviews'. Guitarinternational.com. Retrieved February 24, 2014.<templatestyles src='Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css'></templatestyles>
- ↑'danny gatton – YouTube'. M.youtube.com. April 10, 1989. Retrieved February 24, 2014.<templatestyles src='Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css'></templatestyles>
- ↑'Danny Gatton at Gallagher's – YouTube'. M.youtube.com. December 23, 2006. Retrieved February 24, 2014.<templatestyles src='Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css'></templatestyles>
- ↑'Bman's Blues Report: Marcel Marsupial Records artist: Boy Wells – Blue Skies Calling – New Release Review'. Bmansbluesreport.com. December 1, 2011. Retrieved February 24, 2014.<templatestyles src='Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css'></templatestyles>
Further reading
- Heibutzki, Ralph (2003). Unfinished Business: The Life and Times of Danny Gatton. San Francisco: Backbeat Books. ISBN0-87930-748-X.<templatestyles src='Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css'></templatestyles>
External links
Retrieved from 'https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Danny_Gatton&oldid=3662183'
Update: November, 2002Danny Gatton CDs Available
If you've heard him .. we need say no more. If not, you are in for a rare treat. See why guitar giants such as Les Paul, Eric Clapton, Joe Pass, Jeff Beck, Joe Perry, Scotty Moore and many others are so amazed by the 'Worlds Greatest Unkown Guitarist'. CLICK HERE FOR INFO.
Update: April, 2002
Some Gatton History
by Steve Wolf
I was a member of several of Danny's groups and projects including the original RedneckJazz Explosion. I wanted to pass along a few details that might help toshed light on this period of his career in the mid and late 1970's. The'Redneck Jazz Explosion' band did not record the first 'Redneck Jazz'collection as stated below. Buddy Emmons and myself,who later became members of the 'Redneck Jazz Explosion Band' were simplyguests on the original 'Redneck Jazz' red vinyl release, and we played on asingle tune each. The 'Explosion' band was documented in a later releasewhich is the 'Redneck Jazz Explosion' Live at the Cellar Door. Thefollowing should help clarify things:
I was a member of several of Danny's groups and projects including the original RedneckJazz Explosion. I wanted to pass along a few details that might help toshed light on this period of his career in the mid and late 1970's. The'Redneck Jazz Explosion' band did not record the first 'Redneck Jazz'collection as stated below. Buddy Emmons and myself,who later became members of the 'Redneck Jazz Explosion Band' were simplyguests on the original 'Redneck Jazz' red vinyl release, and we played on asingle tune each. The 'Explosion' band was documented in a later releasewhich is the 'Redneck Jazz Explosion' Live at the Cellar Door. Thefollowing should help clarify things:
Soon after the 'Fat Boys' band Danny started his first serious longer termproject as a leader. It was called 'The Danny Gatton Band' This grouplasted at least a year and included Evan Johns (Guitar/Vocal & songwriting), Dave Elliott (Danny's former band mate and drummer with The FatBoys), and John Previtti (Bass). It was this band that recorded the'Redneck Jazz' album. Evan Johns wrote the title track and coined the termto describe what he saw as Danny's style. Danny loved Buddy Emmons'playing and when the band was doing a gig in Nashville, Danny decided to doa studio session and invite Buddy to join them. The results were thehottest track on the subsequent 'Redneck Jazz' record, and a firm mutualrespect and budding friendship between Danny & Buddy. The record became aregional hit and served to further solidify Danny's reputation. Shortlybefore the record was released, however, Danny disbanded the 'Danny GattonBand.'
He called me down from Boston where I was living at the time (in early1978) to be a part of his next project which he dubbed 'The Redneck JazzExplosion.' I had done a series of gigs with Danny in the mid 70's when Ihad become involved with him through his good friend and musical mentorDick Heintze. (Dick also spent years touring with Roy Buchanan and isfeatured on early Buchanan recordings.) I arrived back in DC just in timeto sit in on one last track for the original 'Redneck Jazz' record project. The tune was 'Comin' Home Baby' which also featured Dick Heintze.
One of the 'Explosion's' first gigs was in Nashville at the now defunctRandy's Pickin' Parlor. Also guest performing with us that evening werethree top Nashville session players: guitarist, Bucky Barrett, fiddleplayer Buddy Spiker and of course, Buddy Emmons on pedal steel. Theresults were so much fun that Danny soon booked four nights in a row at thelegendary Cellar Door in Washington DC. That lineup also included bothBuddy Emmons and Spiker. Within a couple of months the band solidifiedinto the quartet heard on the 'Redneck Jazz Explosion Live at the CellarDoor' CD. It included Scott Taylor on drums with me on bass.
Early editions of 'The Redneck Jazz Explosion' also included Dick Heintzewho was in bad health and deteriorating from Lou Gherigs disease, a fastacting form of MS. Within a couple of months he became unable to play andhe passed away shortly after.
Those tapes, recorded on New Years Eve 78/79 sat on the shelf until theoriginal 'Redneck Jazz' (the one by the Danny Gatton Band) recording wasre-released on CD. Two tracks from the 'Explosion's' Cellar Door sessionswere added as bonus tracks that weren't on the original vinyl LP version.This, of course added to the confusion between the two bands and recordings.
Shortly after Danny's death, his mother Norma, with the encouragement ofseveral prominent DC area musicians and music fans, decided to finallyrelease the rest of the Cellar Door tapes. Bootleg tapes of that eveninghad circulated widely and she knew that there was an interest in thematerial. Norma Gatton had paid for the original live recording and stillcontrolled the source tapes. I was given the task of assembling andediting the tapes into a presentable format. It's an important snapshot ofwhat many consider to be one of his most creative career phases, andincluded ample use of the 'Magic Dingus Box' as well as the wonderfulchemistry between Buddy and Danny. The 'Explosion' band lasted throughmost of 1979. Drummer Shannon Ford joined about halfway through the year,and he later followed Danny to work with both Rodger Miller and RobertGordon.
The 'Redneck Jazz Explosion' quartet traveled the East Coast from Boston &New York, to Atlanta and consequently attracted the interest of AtlanticRecords. A serious offer was made by Atlantic, but for his own reasonsDanny chose not to accept it. Those negotiations in part, prevented therelease of the live Cellar Door sessions at the time.
A trio version of the band, minus Buddy, also performed regularly aroundthe DC/Baltimore area. As you mentioned, Danny cut his hand, whichprevented him from playing out for a couple of months, but the real reasonsfor the hiatus that followed were, in my opinion, deeper. Before cuttinghis hand, he had already started talking of once more quitting the musicbusiness in spite of the band's success and the great working relationshiphe had developed with Buddy Emmons. During the previous year he had losthis father to whom he was very close, and two close friends: Dick Heintzeand Lowell George of Little Feat. Danny was hit deeply by these losses.
An interesting sidebar to all of this is that the night before Lowellpassed away in his Washington hotel room, Danny did a live radio interviewwith him for WHFS, a prominent DC area alternative music station of thetime. Lowell invited Danny to sit in with Little Feat the next night attheir Richmond, VA show. That show never took place. Prior to that,Lowell had been planning to start his own solo career and was courtingDanny to be a part of that project. Danny, who always liked to have his'homeboys' around him, was trying to get Shannon Ford and myself includedin the band. I remember Danny asking me to get a demo tape of my playingtogether to give to Lowell.
A few months after the demise of 'The Redneck Jazz Explosion' Danny brieflyrevived a version of his old 'Danny Gatton Band' with Dave Elliott and EvanJohns along with me on bass. Danny quickly grew tired of this project, ashe probably wasn't ready to get back into the business full swing. Thestory continues as you tell it from the time of his West Coast visit andhis stints with Roger Miller and Robert Gordon.
Danny later did a couple of other one-night presentations, which used thename 'Redneck Jazz', or the 'Redneck Jazz Explosion,' and Buddy Emmons wasbrought to town for two of these. The bands included whomever he couldline up at the time. Up to the end, whenever I would see him, Danny wouldalways mention getting the original (Explosion) band back together.Unfortunately for all of us, that will never happen.
I hope you enjoy hearing these extra tidbits on Danny's career, and that ithelps to clear up the story of the two distinctly different bands, 'TheDanny Gatton Band' and 'The Redneck Jazz Explosion.' There is anextensive, well written and researched account of this period in the linernotes of the Redneck Jazz Explosion CD.
Danny circa 1977
![Gatton Gatton](https://rubbercityreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Danny-Gatton-Redneck-Jazz1.jpg)
Danny Gatton Redneck Jazz Raritan
Danny Gatton:Photos, Text & Graphics
Steve Wolf
Previously Posted
Author Unknown
Ibank 5 1 1.
Ibank 5 1 1.
But for a quirk of fate, Danny Gatton would have been what he looked like: a sheet metal worker. He was short and pudgy, and he nursed his beer and cigarette like he was sitting in a bar on the Jersey shoreline after work. He got an F in charisma, lacking every star trapping imaginable, and stared down at his boots when he had to talk about himself. Yet in some ways Gatton was one of the great guitarists. Certainly in terms of sheer technique he was stunning, and he had the rare ability to make all those notes take on form and substance.
Gatton knew his history, which so often is a creative dead end. Guitarist-historians end up parroting their favorites and becoming a compendium of stuff they've figured out how to play. Gatton was different. He knew Sol Hoopii, Les Paul, and Scotty Moore, and he could throw in little quotations from their work, just like Charlie Parker used to interject a blast of 'White Christmas' into his solos. Gatton's genius, if that's what it was, lay in his ability to synthesize an almost impossibly broad range of styles, and in his mastery of guitar mechanics.
Danny Gatton was born in Washington, D.C., at 88 Elmira Street - as noted in the title of his first Elektra album. Before World War II, his father, Daniel W. Gatton Sr., was a rhythm guitarist in a band called the Royalists. Gatton says that his father played in the percussive rhythm style of Freddie Green with the Basie orchestra. Danny was born on September 4, 1945. By then, his father had given up the guitar as a living, but there was still music to be heard in the house. It was his uncle who introduced the six-year-old Danny Gatton to the music of perhaps his greatest influence, Les Paul.
Paul, along with Charlie Christian and the first generation of rockabilly pickers, formed the core of Danny Gatton's listening. Les Paul was the principal influence because of his technological innovation as much as his music. Gatton was always as much intrigued by the technology of the guitar as the muisic itself. He slowed down Paul's 45 rpm records to 33 rpm to get a better understanding of how the overdubs were layered. When asked, he cited the astonishing 'Little Rock Getaway' as his favorite cut.
Gatton tried to emulate Les Paul by rigging up primitive overdubbing equipment at home with two tape decks. 'I would play a track on the left machine,' he said, 'run it into the right one with a Y cord, and play along with it. I created echo by doubling a part and playing a little bit behind myself, which is real hard to do when you're about twelve.' The D.C. area has been home to some great guitarists, such as Link Wray, the godfather of the power chord. Gatton denied that Wray was any kind of influence at all. 'I never was much of a fan,' he said. 'I'm not trying to brag, but by the time I heard 'Rumble' I could play better than that. My heroes were always at the other end of the spectrum. Now I like to hear that kind of stuff, but back then it was no challenge.'
Danny Gatton Redneck Jazz Rara
Around 1959, when he was in junior high school, Gatton joined a band called the Offbeats. They played the Top Forty hits of the day, and that gig led to other bar-band jobs that eventually led to Nashville. Gatton moved there for a few months late in 1967. He was working with a band that played at a club in Printer's Alley. After they packed it in, Gatton toyed with the idea of trying to break into the studio scene, but found himself without contacts in what was then a closed shop. 'A couple of years later,' he said, 'I found I lived three doors down from Scotty Moore.'
Gatton met Lenny Breau in Nashville. The son of the Canadian country singers Hal Lone Pine and Betty Cody, Breau was perhaps the most technically brilliant guitarist of our time. He could, for instance, play lead and rhythm at the same time. Given a small private income and a limitless supply of drugs, Breau would have played jazz. As it was, his day jobs were mostly in country music (he was in Anne Murray's backing group for a while). For over twenty years, he was in the process of 'getting it together.' Then he was murdered in 1984. Gatton thought Breau was the best ever.
Lenny was living in this apartment in Nashville,' Gatton told Guitar World, 'with no heat, no lights, nothin' but running water and a candle. And still he was playing the most beautiful music you ever heard. It was really sad. It was a crime.' Breau and Gatton made an odd study in physical contrast. Gatton was chubby; Breau was gauntly thin. Breau, like Robert Johnson, had elongated, talon-like fingers. Gatton had short, stubby fingers that often got mashed in the course of doing body work on his cars.
By June 1968 Gatton was back in the D.C. area and had gotten married. His wife worked for the government; he did body work and other sheet metal work, and he went back to playing the bars around D.C. a few nights a week. By 1974 he was part of a country band with an uncountry name: Liz Meyer and Friends. Then he formed his own trio, Danny and the Fat Boys. It was around this point that the rare albums and underground tapes started making the rounds. In 1975 Gatton and the Fat Boys recorded a hard-to-find album for Billy Hancock's Alladdin label. Hancock claims to have bought the label name off the original owners, although there are probably a few lawyers who would like to argue that point.
The Fat Boys broke up, and Gatton's career took one of its hiatuses. He returned to music with a group called Redneck Jazz Explosion. Buddy Emmons played pedal steel guitar. They hit the local spots around D.C. and made a few ventures beyond; the one that everyone remembers was to New york to play the Lone Star. The band was documented on a 1978 release, Redneck Jazz, funded by Gatton's parents. It's something of an all-star session for its day and budget. Along with Gatton and Emmons, there's Chuck Tilley (who had worked with Roy Buchanan) and Evan Johns on vocals. Typically, the front cover photo was of Gatton's guitar - not Gatton himself. Other pickers began to conjecture about his 'Dingus Box,' a contraption that controlled tone and special effects that he clipped onto the guitar behind the bridge.
The group dissolved when Gatton cut his hand badly, severing some tendons. After a year away from the guitar, he let one of his buddies persuade him to go to Santa Cruz, California, to do some work outside music. His return to playing came with an invitation to play on a commander Cody album. That led to an invitation to audition for Roger Miller in 1980. For years, Miller's regular guitarist had been 'Thumbs' Carllile, who positioned his guitar on his lap like a lap steel. Carllile quit Miller's lineup after Gatton's audition but latter returned. They played together for about a year and a half, a period that Gatton remembered as one of the high watermarks of his life.
Although he played Vegas and other spots with Miller, Gatton was still based in D.C. holding down an irregular gig at a club in Georgetown in a band fronted by Billy Hancock. Hancock was friendly with Robert Gordon, who was then spearheading one of those rockabilly revivals that never seem to quite happen. Gordon invited Gatton to play on one of his albums, then asked him to go out on the road. For a while, Gatton played with both Miller and Gordon, but eventually settled for a year or so of steady work with Gordon. He was dismissive of that period. 'I had to play like I was twelve years old again,' he said, 'but then if you play with other people, you have to play what they want you to play.'
Many of those who saw Gatton with Gordon have far fonder memories of the music they made together. It sounded like magic from one of the ringside tables. For years a bootleg tape of one of the gigs made the rounds among pickers, leading Amos Garrett to dub Gatton 'the humbler.' After the gig with Gordon ended, Gatton quit the business again for a while. 'It was John Previti, who's my bass player now, who got me back into it,' he said. 'He called me up to do a little four-piece jazz gig, and it was really a lot of fun. I got addicted to it all over again, and it kinda evolved into another band, called the Drapes, with Billy Windsor singing. I brought the nucleus of my jazz band into his band with the horns and all, and we started doing soul music. We got the idea to cut some tunes, and that was when people started approaching me about management. I figured it was really time to make a move. I couldn't just sit out on the farm forever; I mean, this is the thing I do best.
'In my mind, I'm still sixteen and I've got forever, but the realization is coming that I don't. I gotta make a move. I like playing, writing and producing and the only thing I can't handle is the travel - but that goes with the territory.' In 1987 Gatton released another record on the NRG label (the initials of his mother, Norma Rae Gatton, who distributed the record from her home in Georgia). Titled Unfinished Business, it's a bewildering mosaic. Side one of the vinyl version opens with 'Cherokee,' which is Gatton's salute to Les Paul; side two opens with Charlie Byrd's 'Homage to Charlie Christian.' Throw in an original blues, the old Santo and Johnny hit 'Sleepwalk,' and a goosed-up version of Arthur 'Guitar Boogie' Smith's 'Fingers on Fire,' and you get some idea of the bases Gatton could cover. The problem was knowing where to file him. The album's cause wasn't helped by the cover art (courtesy of Shorty's Art & Sign, White Plain, Maryland), which featured a pencil drawing of four obviously full of deep personal significance for Gatton, but it wasn't a jacket likely to reel in the unsuspecting listener.
Then Elektra Records came calling with checkbook in hand. Major label deals can be a curse as much as a blessing. Budgets are bigger, distribution nightmares end, but the company wants to insure its investment by assigning a producer with the brief to come up with something for radio. Gatton said that Elektra gave him a fairly free hand when he was signed, only insisting that he produce a solely instrumental album for his debut. Their only suggestion was that he cut the theme from 'The Simpsons' (the Hand-D-Gas fart at the end is probably Gatton's comment on the idea). When he went out on tour in support of the album, he worked with a vocalist and mixed instrumental and vocal numbers on a roughly fifty-fifty basis. 'The vocal numbers are set up so I can play in them,' he said, 'but too many hot licks gets old. Something's got to keep this thing normal.' Elektra's insistence upon a solely instrumental album at least made possible a clear, perhaps definitive, statement of what Danny Gatton could do.
At most of his gigs there was a little cluster of pickers sitting close enough to study his right hand. His explanation his right-hand technique was typically self-deprecating: 'It came about out of basic laziness,' he said. 'I taught myself bluegrass banjo when I was twelve or fourteen, and then I discovered I could play steel guitar with a flat pick and fingers, and I took those techniques and applied them to the guitar. Then I met Lenny Breau, and he had a real long fingernail on his little finger, and he used it for his high notes and little chords to get this whole different sparkling little sound. I use that little finger for chord voicings, and it gives me a whole different texture.' This explanation was delivered deadpan as if he were talking about how he dropped in at the bar on the way home from work, and met someone he hadn't seen since last week.
The title cut of the first Elektra album, 88 Elmira Street, was a direct homage to all the rockabilly pickers who influenced him. The listener can pick up quotations from the work of Scotty Moore, Al Casey, James Burton, and others. 'I was playing Scotty Moore's original guitar on that track,' said Gatton. 'It's a Gibson ES-295, and I bought it trashed out twelve years ago. It sounded incredibly good; it had some magic in it, but I didn't know it was Scotty's. Then Billy Hancock kept offering me all kinds of money for it, way more than it should have been worth, so I said, 'What's the deal?' He said, 'I think you've got Scotty Moore's guitar there.' He got out all these old photos, and this one had a different bridge and tailpiece and had a chip out of it exactly like Scotty's, so we called him and he confirmed it.'
'Blues Newburg,' from
Danny Gatton Redneck Jazz Rare Earth
Perhaps Gatton's strength lay in refashioning familiar pieces so that you heard them in a different way. He would state, restate, and paraphrase the theme, then dig into the changes. It was all a little more cerebral than Buchanan. Gatton was preoccupied with tone and texture - every note and every voicing seemed to be the product of endless experimentation.
Gatton must have been one of the first, perhaps the first act in what can loosely be called rock music to make his major-label debut at age forty-six, but he wasn't the product of major-label culture and didn't belong there. He explored a musical backwater of his own invention, but the public wasn't buying into it and Elektra dropped him. To Gatton, it was a relief as much as anything. He later recorded a jazz album for Blue Note and another record for a local label.
Then in October 1994 came the news that he had committed suicide. Those close to him say that Gatton, curiously like Roy Buchanan, was prone to bouts of depression. He had had a domestic argument, then tormed out of the house and over to his garage to work on his car. Later there was a gunshot.