David Lindley, RIP

[Jim Garber]

https://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...browne-dies-79

I was a big fan of his during the El Rayo X days and saw him playing both solo and with that band a few times in New York. So sad to lose yet another big talent.

[DavidKOS]

When I was working at a music dealer/wholesaler biz, I had the pleasure of meeting him a couple times. He was a gentleman, humble, and could play a lot of stuff really well! RIP.

[Dagger Gordon]

Sad, sad news. I was a huge fan.

RIP

[Dave Greenspoon]

What a tremendous loss.

[tmsweeney]

I'm gonna buy me a mercury.....

[MikeEdgerton]

David got sounds out of instruments that are etched in people's brains and the majority of them never knew his name. RIP.

[Eric Platt]

He was a great influence in my getting into funky guitars in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Saw him a couple of times and talked to him once. Gave him a funky Teisco electric labeled for the Ideal toy company.

His appearance with Jackson Brown on Saturday Night Live playing Running on Empty will probably be one for the ages.

[MikeEdgerton]

One with 8 strings.

[foldedpath]

I bought all his albums and saw him once in concert here in my small town, just David and a percussionist. It was a great show. He'll be missed, but he had a good run.

He's famous for the comment that "It's all one instrument" when talking about playing all the many different ones he was known for playing.

[Don Grieser]

RIP David. What a musical legacy he left behind.

Another one with 8 strings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njlh1BA0E58

[KCNelson]

RIP, David Lindley

I'm afraid we are reaching an era where we will be saying goodbye to one musical giant after another.
So far this year: David Lindley, Wayne Shorter, Burt Bacharach, Chuck Jackson, Tom Verlaine, David Crosby, Jeff Beck, Huey Piano Smith...

I'm so glad that Paul McCartney practices yoga at 80, and that somehow Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Ringo Starr and Keith Richards are still with us.

[catmandu2]

Dave is a great inspiration to me. I first saw him on Jackson's Pretender album tour in 76 or 77 or whatever, and later learned all his pedal steel solo's on For Everyman back when I was playing pedal steel. I've often posted here and elsewhere examples of his playing to demonstrate the viability of economy Hora instruments, introductions to oud playing, deploying these in Western song forms, etc. His excursions into non-Western forms compel me: the Sweet Sunny North compilation introduced me to Halvard Bjorgum, Annbjorg Lien, and traditional Norwegian music such that I'm currently immersed in the trad Norsk fiddle tradition myself. As a longtime guitarist and multi-instrumentalist myself, his axiom "All one big instrument" certainly rings true. Thank you for everything Dave.

[pops1]

I have a picture on my wall of my friend Dave and David Lindley, the two Daves. Will be missed, such a talent.

[Marcus CA]

From a 2000 article in the LA Times, marking forty years of the Topanga Canyon Banjo and Fiddle Contest:

"Over the last 40 years, contestants have ranged in age from 4 to 98 and in ability from accomplished amateurs to promising novices. While still in his teens, recording artist David Lindley won the fiddle competition four years straight in the 1960s. It’s been reported that contest officials then made Lindley a judge in order to give other fiddlers a chance."

He also won the banjo contest along the way.

I'm gonna buy me a mercury.....

I always loved this version by the Slide Masters.

I bought all his albums and saw him once in concert here in my small town, just David and a percussionist. It was a great show. He'll be missed, but he had a good run.

There was that stretch of my youth when the greats were all dying young and strung (out). Now, they're dying after a good run. Intimations of mortality, I reckon.

I also saw him with drummer/percussionist Wally Ingram as the Twango Bango duo. Two kindred musical spirits: great talents with a wonderfully musical loose screw. Lindley had a bunch of stringed instruments --- no violin --- on stands behind him. I knew what some of them were. The guy was an explorer and a master!

[Chief]

So, the first time I heard David on an early Jackson Browne album playing fiddle ( at the time I was primarily a fiddle player). I thought to myself- that is how I want to play fiddle. Not the fancy stuff with too many notes, but the muscular stuff that knew where it was going. And that is how I spent the next 40+ years of my life (while adding the mandolin family to my arsenal). And don't get me going on El Rayo Ex. Those albums ruled, as they used to say. So, to say this is a loss really doesn't mean much to me. David Lindley was a true american original. He was one of a kind.

[lflngpicker]

The classic Jackson Browne songs would not be the same without Lindley’s slide and fiddle parts. Late for the Sky album really features his work so well. So sad to hear, Jim.

[Don Grieser]

This a great remembrance with lots of info on tracks he played on. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...ew-1234690862/

[Glassweb]

https://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...browne-dies-79

I was a big fan of his during the El Rayo X days and saw him playing both solo and with that band a few times in New York. So sad to lose yet another big talent.

Saw many times solo and With El Rayo in Seattle at the legendary Backstage Tavern in Ballard. What a master musician... in every way. And FUNNY! Damn...

[journeybear]

I'll try and keep this brief and on point, but I make no promises.

I had one David Lindley experience, and it was a memorable one. It was at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1991. I was there because the jug band I was in got to play there, which was my first taste of "the big time." We got flown out, put up in the Holiday Inn downtown, bused out to the festival site an hour away, shlepped around the grounds in golf carts - oh, and got to play a couple of sets. We opened the Friday night concerts, and on Sunday did a jug band workshop with The Jug Band - everyone from the Kweskin outfit except Kweskin, who had forsaken the music as the work of the devil. I have so many stories from the weekend, but I'm going to try and stay focused.

Flying out was no problem - west from NYC to Minneapolis, north to Winnipeg. But I heard horror stories from many people who were rerouted first north to Toronto and then west to Winnipeg. Apparently, Canadian customs in Toronto was not clued in about an influx of lots of odd-looking people carrying odd-looking baggage, and many musicians got the full inspection treatment.

This included Lindley, who had more instruments than anyone, most likely. I believed he made some humorous remarks about this in his stage patter. He was he headliner Thursday night. What I mostly remember about his performance is that he had an enormous wooden chest on stage - and I mean, enormous, a few cubic meters - from which he would reach in and pull out whatever instrument he wanted to play for the next song. It was like Felix The Cat reaching into his bag of tricks - only a much bigger bag. Many delightful noise makers and noises issued from the chest and the stage during his time on it. It was quite a delight all around.

I'd known his name, of course, but never had had the chance to hear him live before - nor since. I'll never forget that spectacle. Thanks for this memory, and all the music. RIP, David Lindley.



The notes in the first clip say the interview with Ry Cooder was recorded then, but he did not perform at the festival. I'd have known - I've always wanted to see him but never have. In the second clip the interviewer says it was recorded earlier in the week. (Just trying to keep the record straight.) Too bad there's no footage of Lindley in action. But he sounds great.



/

[StillStephen]

There is a fundraiser selling T-shirts to help his wife and daughters with medical bills: https://www.customink.com/fundraisin...✓&query[keyword]=David+lindley&button=

[Eric F.]

He ... could play a lot of stuff really well!

Indeed. I always assumed he was some kind of wizard.

[Jim Garber]

There is a fundraiser selling T-shirts to help his wife and daughters with medical bills: https://www.customink.com/fundraisin...✓&query[keyword]=David+lindley&button=

I tried and got a generic page. I did see that you had to search for David+Lindley. Maybe if we link this way: click here.

[musicofanatic]

There is a fundraiser selling T-shirts to help his wife and daughters with medical bills: https://www.customink.com/fundraisin...✓&query[keyword]=David+lindley&button=

Try this link: https://www.customink.com/fundraisin...-wellness-fund

[NickR]

As already mentioned above, his contribution to Jackson Browne's early albums was huge. One of my friends was/is in a band called Latin Quarter. They recorded an album in LA called "Swimming Against the Stream" in 1989 and I can't quite remember the exact story but Richard had been given David Linley's telephone number back in England by somebody, so he phoned him- not expecting to get hold of him, but he answered and better still came along and contributed to the album! I sent this Danny O'Keefe song with David playing steel a number of years ago. Two greats- (and a few Eagles as well) on this- Danny and David. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IscaIi-y1pQ

[TarHeelPicker]

Lindley was such a talented musician. I wasn't really aware of his work until I heard Late For the Sky, but his solo on that song absolutely floored me. He conveys more emotion in that solo than many folks convey in an entire album.