Last of the Texas T-Bone Guitar Slingers: Roy Gaines What could Roy Milton, Bobby Blue Bland, Joe Morris, Chuck Willis, Brook Benton, Jimmy Rushing, Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, John Hammond, the Jazz Crusaders, Earl Grant, Ray Charles, Della Reese, Stevie Wonder, the Everly Brothers, Bobby Darin, Diana Ross, Quincy Jones and Harry Belafonte all possibly have in common? At one time or another, every one of those stars and quite a few more utilized the talents of incredibly versatile Los Angeles-based guitarist Roy Gaines. He’s played on film soundtracks, taken a late ‘60s side trip into calypso, done session work for Motown’s West Coast office, tried a Cole Porter chestnut on for size in the studio (complete with a swirling string section), waxed a Bob Dylan cover for a big New York label, and dabbled in country music with Hank Williams’ first wife Audrey. Yet his albums over the last two decades, several of them issued on his own Black Gold Records imprint, make it abundantly clear that Gaines has never abandoned his Texas blues roots. He holds T-Bone Walker’s immaculate fretwork especially close to his heart. Born in Waskom, Texas, Roy Gaines started out playing piano in the style of Nat “King” Cole at an early age, and then switched to the guitar when he was 14. An unabashed admirer of fellow Texan T-Bone Walker, Gaines met his idol as a youth and modeled his own playing after Walker ‘s groundbreaking style, later performing and recording with the pioneering electric bluesman.

http://roygaines.com/roygaines/index.php/about/

http://www.carolynbluessingergaines.com/

Brigitte Purdy Interview - @ 4 pm PT/6 pm CT

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