Sonny Landreth

It’s 1995, and Sonny Landreth is recording his soon-to-be breakthrough album South of I-10 in Maurice, Louisiana (population 900) and has invited New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint to play piano on the soon-to-be-classic Landreth-penned track ‘Congo Square’. Toussaint sits in the studio and watches as Sonny begins to simultaneously fret melodic chords and play incendiary slide with his left-hand while strumming, tapping and finger-picking potent notes with his right. When Landreth finishes, Toussaint turns to the recording engineer and says, “That boy just found a different way to play guitar.”

Fourteen albums, two Grammy nominations, nearly a dozen major awards and more than four decades into a career like no other, Sonny Landreth is an artist who’s found a different way to play guitar and then some.  Music journalists have called the singer/songwriter/bandleader/guitar virtuoso everything from “the Cajun Santana” (Blues Society) and “an innovator on the order of Eddie Van Halen” (All About Jazz) to “a slide sorcerer who knows truths mortals can’t comprehend” (Glide Magazine) and “one of the finest guitarists America has ever produced” (Rock & Blues Muse). Meanwhile, artists that include Mark Knopfler, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks and Eric Clapton – who’s famously said, “Sonny Landreth is probably the most underestimated musician on the planet, and also one of the most advanced” – consider him an invaluable colleague, collaborator and bonafide guitar hero.

“All that still blows me away,” Sonny Landreth says. “When I sit down to play, ideas just seem to occur to me and then flow. I started out on trumpet and played in both school band and orchestra into my college years, and all that experience on a wind instrument helped me to approach the guitar with a different sensibility. There was a measured-breath vocal quality to slide guitar that spoke to me immediately.  And while I can appreciate the technical aspects, my music heroes have always been the soulful players. As a songwriter and performer, what I look for first is the opportunity to resonate with audiences on a soulful level.”

For the Lafayette, Louisiana native, it’s a journey of remarkable musicianship that began with his first guitar at age 12. By his 20’s he was sitting in with local Creole and Cajun musicians and would soon become the first white member of Clifton Chenier’s legendary Red Hot Louisiana Band. “Though I was writing and recording my own music early on, I had an instinct to always keep my antenna up,” Landreth says. “What Clifton and his band were doing harmonically and rhythmically was pure genius. Plus being raised in a community where music is such a huge part of the culture, loving Robert Johnson and Duane Allman as much as Mozart, I just absorbed every one of those influences and somehow crystallized it into my own style.”

As Landreth’s international reputation grew via his solo debut album Blues Attack (1981) and breakout trilogy of Way Down In Louisiana (1985), Outward Bound (1992) and South of I-10 (1995), he also began a celebrated association with John Hiatt during which Sonny helped define the sound of the iconic Slow Turning album and as a member of Hiatt’s seminal touring band The Goners. Landreth would also be invited by Jimmy Buffett to be a guest performer in his Coral Reefer Band – a collaboration that lasted more than a decade – while making influential appearances on albums by John Mayall, Kenny Loggins, Gov’t Mule, Little Feat, Beausoleil, Elliott Murphy, Junior Wells and Mark Knopfler. “Those were all tremendous opportunities,” Sonny says. “Recording and playing with other people, being part of the moments that come out of nowhere. That kind of spontaneity is what you always want to capture.”

Landreth would continue to capture acclaim and accolades with his album Levee Town (2000) which featured guest vocals by John Hiatt and Bonnie Raitt; the #1 Billboard Blues Chart and Grammy-nominated The Road We’re On (2003); the Billboard Top 3 live recording Grant Street (2005); the Billboard #1 From The Reach (2008) featuring guests that included Clapton, Knopfler, Buffett, Dr. John, Vince Gill, Robben Ford and Nadirah Shakoor; the Billboard Top 5 Elemental Journal (2012); the Blues Foundation Best Album Award winner Bound By The Blues (2015); and the Grammy-nominated Recorded Live in Lafayette (2017). Through it all, Landreth discovered that his record-buying and concert audiences encompassed fans of blues, rock, jazz, zydeco, country, Americana, world music and more. “Not being pinned down to any one genre can be a blessing and a curse,” he laughs. “But I was always comfortable playing different styles because I love all kinds of music. And I’m grateful that slide guitar can speak to any audience.”

As popular as Landreth’s album catalog remains, it’s his dedicated live following that keeps multiplying internationally. “It’s tremendously rewarding that so many people come to the shows and know all the songs,” Landreth says. “When you're playing live, the audience provides an energy you can tap into. It’s a bond that inspires me to take chances and reach higher. As a musician, those are the moments I live for.” And as anyone who’s witnessed him as the opening performer for an unprecedented seven of Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festivals can attest, Landreth’s slide wizardry is a consistent highlight of the world’s most famous six-string summit. “Whether it’s the Cotton Bowl or Madison Square Garden, all those shows have been super-special for me,” Sonny says, “Eric has been a good friend for a long time and it’s always an honor to be invited to play for such a good cause.”

For Landreth, the future is an open road with the top down and the radio turned up. He’s currently recording a new album – his first since 2020’s worldwide Top 5 Blacktop Run – and maintaining a busy touring schedule, while his song ‘Congo Square’ has become a standard covered by artists that range from The Neville Brothers to John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers. But for a one-of-a-kind artist who continues to defy categorization while entertaining audiences of every genre, what keeps him going/growing as an ever innovative yet always down-to-earth performer? “I still believe that music can possess the same magic that we all felt when we were kids,” Landreth says. “You want it to feel personal and be inspiring. Whenever my music communicates or resonates with people, it’s a great affirmation.”

For Sonny Landreth, it’s a soulful level that matters – and delivers – now more than ever.