A Sense of Place
by Pieter Hofmann
What captures one's attention immediately when speaking with Sonny Landreth is his civility. Less concerned about his own accomplishments, Landreth is the consummate storyteller, willing to talk and praise others and simply talk about his first love: music. Though his own catalog of recordings is impressive, including his latest disc, Levee Town, the discussion invariably veers toward other musicians, either those with whom he has worked or those whom he regards in high esteem. A Southern gentleman, Landreth unabashedly loves the art form. And with a career in the industry, he has lucked out. This is a dream job.
On the phone from Lafayette, Louisiana, a stone's throw from where he now resides, Landreth began the discussion backtracking to the past New Year's Eve where he joined one of his teen idols, B.B. King, onstage at Union Station in Chicago. "I raised the bar a few feet this year," he said. "I was with John [Hiatt] in the crowd and B.B. invited both of us up on stage. He was playing 'Auld Lang Syne' when he asked us to join him. I've been a fan of his since I was 16 or thereabouts, so it was one of the highlights of my career." Asked if he was nervous about playing with the blues legend, Landreth paused. "Well, put it this way: He had his large band with him and I sort of moved behind the horn section," he laughed. "B.B. said, 'Hey, get out here.' So John and I sat beside him and played with him for the rest of the show." Because of his age, B.B. King now remains seated throughout his performances. "Man, can he still play. Almighty, he sounded great."
And so does Landreth on his latest recording, Levee Town. His first for the Sugar Hill label and third solo outing since South of I-10 in 1995, it proves that Landreth understands when his slide bottleneck guitar work warrants a scorched earth policy or whether subtlety is in order. After the release of South of I-10, Rolling Stone said "...Landreth comes out wailing...[The album] underscores Landreth's knowledge that guitar solos are meaningless outside the context of compelling rhythms and snappy songs..." There is no posturing, no bragging — just neat, concise guitar lines totally in tune with their surroundings.
Levee Town, the third installment in a loosely based trilogy, is perhaps the finest of the group. Exploring his Southern roots, Landreth contemplates through song an area that he affectionately calls "another country." One can feel the sticky, humid conditions, clearly picture mangrove swamps in their full splendor, and sense a time and place that moves at a decidedly slower pace. Landreth has finally found his voice and secured the technology to record his pipes to the best of their ability. With humor, he recalled, "I've got beaten up by the critics on my past few records about my voice. And that's okay. Because it was more of a recording issue than my actual voice being the problem. We finally figured out how best to present that aspect of my music in the studio."
Born in Canton, Mississippi, in 1951, Landreth moved with his family five years later to Louisiana. He grew up listening to the sounds of the bayou. While Cajun and blues have provided him with the seeds for his music, it was, in fact, Scotty Moore who made the greatest impact upon him. Seeing Moore (Elvis Presley's guitarist) perform on television, Landreth was instantly hooked. "I was about five years old when I first saw him on TV," he said. "He became my hero. I didn't realize how he was making those sounds with the guitar, I really didn't have a clue. All I knew was that it sounded so cool, and I wanted to be a part of that.
"After Moore, I got stung by The Ventures," he confided, "and that, oddly, led me to Wes Montgomery and then Chet Atkins. Chet shook my world and that's where I learned to fingerpick." His appetite for the guitar has never ceased.
