Danny Gatton , Unfinished Business

I love Danny. Got into him in the 80s. Unfinished Business is my favorite by him. Really shows his taste, point of view and playing perfectly. Has a Les Paul kinda sound to the tone of his playing with the double tracking and quick stuff. A little canned sometimes. But, overall just an excellent listen. Very musical. What a great player he was.

Anyone else like Unfinished Business? or any other record by Danny. Anyone seen him live? I'd love to hear your impressions of Danny.

 

Years ago I ordered Unfinished Business on mail order cassette from NRG records.
Thinking it was a small record label, I also sent a demo tape of my guitar instrumentals along with my check. I also ordered the Redneck Jazz cassette from NRG.
Got a nice long letter (remember letters ?) from it turned out to be Danny’s mom Norma.
But to the subject at hand, Danny was an absolutely incredible guitar player.
Rockabilly, Jazz, country, blues...he was a master of all of them.
There was sort of a parallel thing going on between Danny and Roy Buchanan.
Both played Telecasters (Danny switched from his Les Paul), both were from the Washington, DC area, and both tragically took their own lives.

 

unfinished Business I haven't heard, but he was one of the best. I used to love catching him and Jimmy Thackery whenever I could back then.

 

Wow, how cool. Interesting his mom was involved. His personal life i know nothing about. Adds a dimension of sadness to his story to me.

Yea, he and Roy forevet entertwined. Similar in the ways you named but different too.

Unfinished Bussiness , Redneck Jazz and New York Stories are so cool. And all different from ehat Roy did to me.

What a great story. Thanks.Phil the kill bill guy v2 . As an aside because of your name, i just saw the 5 6 7 8 s and they were so good. I cried they rocked. Just perfect.

Unclefred man lucky you. Wish I'd seen him so much. Did he do the slide with the beer bottle thing? Did he use that effects box built into his guitar?

 

My favourite guitar hero album of all time...The Humbler.

Danny playing live for Robert Gordon. Stoopidly fantastic.

 

NRG Records.stood for Norma R. Gatton.
I agree there were differences between Roy Buchanan and Danny’s approach to guitar playing. Danny was jazzier, Roy was bluesier, maybe a little wilder.
Both phenomenal musicians.

By the way, regarding Kill Bill Vol. 2 , my name is Philip Brigham, and I co-wrote and played guitar on “The Chase” which is on the soundtrack CD, and is heard in the film when Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) drives across the desert to buy the sword from Bill’s brother.

 

Glad I got Danny to sign a copy of Unfinished one night during a blazing show. Miss him and Roy.

 

Big fan of Danny. I too ordered some music from his Mom.

Was lucky enough to see him play live here in Seattle after Cruisin' Deuces was released. Great player, he did his beer bottle slide solo on one of the songs.

 

Yes, the bottle slide stuff is even better than you think it would be when you see it. I don't really remember the box though.

 

There's a new documentary coming out, hopefully next year.

https://www.thehumblermovie.com/

 

F in Awesome. For one reason. I wanna see footage of him live! And interviews with him.

I, like many, heard of him through, Guitar Player Magazine, with the great issue, that i still have. I was workin' at Rainbow Records, got Redneck Jazz and Unfinished Business on Cassette. Obsessed ever since.

All you who saw him live are very lucky, in my eyes. I put him with the best. Just gets me. He and Buddy Emmons and other country guys who did jazz just get me. I love the perspective. His taste just overlaps and informed mine. He has a Les Paul thing to me that rarely gets mentioned. Which of course is old fashioned even its day. How High The Moon, and Les's tinkering and Les's speed. I find them somewhat similar. But removed by time too.

Danny's stuff with Robert Gordon and Link Wray just cements his overlap with my taste. He just was Cool to me. Lenny Breu another obsession, also did the jazz approach with country. So did Jaco. Who was a fish out of water in the 80s, with his taste. Diggin' country as a jazz guy and vise versie could be a black mark to many. But i just love that thing so much.

Can't wait for the doc. It's somewhat of a goldmine with music docs lately. So many cool ones.

 

I remember watching a show on TV in the 80s about Danny Gatton (possibly on PBS).

One of the things that stuck with me was it showed a twelve year old Joe Bonamassa playing at one of Danny's shows. Years later when Joe became popular I flashed back to the clip.

Found it on YouTube...

 

His cover of the Simpson’s theme on 88 Elmira St is sublime.

 

I like Unfinished Business a lot! Great guitarist.

 

Started listening to rockabilly/roots revivalist Robert Gordon in the late 1970s, and his records introduced me to both Link Wray (who soon became one of my guitar idols) and Chris Spedding. We bought tickets to go see Robert live at the Park West in Chicago in May of 1981. Just dug out my original ticket -- $8.50.



By this time, RG had a different lead guitar player, Danny Gatton, although I really had no idea who he was. Great gosh-a-mighty, what a show they put on. Robert delivered pretty much what I expected, and he and his band sounded very, very good, but hearing (and watching) Danny play that night was simply an amazing experience. He did the beer-bottle slide thing, which the audience went ga-ga about, but his absolute mastery of that guitar and his unique blend of influences was truly something to behold. I feel privileged to have been there.

When we left the show that night, we walked past the alleyway behind the Park West and spotted Robert and some of the band members (I may be mistaken, but I think Tony Garnier, nowadays primarily known as Bob Dylan's bassist, was one of them) leaning up against a wall back there having smokes -- we yelled and waved at them, and they waved back, so I keep telling myself that I got a personal shout-out from Danny Gatton, haha.

I have some, but not all, of Danny's CDs, including Unfinished Business, 88 Elmira Street, Cruisin' Deuces, and the live Humbler with RG. The production quality is quite good on 88 Elmira Street, and whenever a melancholy mood strikes, listening to Danny playing Brian Wilson's "In My Room" lets you know that you're not the only one who's ever felt that way.

 

Danny's "Relentless" is my favorite. He was on fire. Joey DeFrancesco on organ. Some smokin' Jazz for sure.

 

As a guitar picker, his guitar tutorial is a wonderful look into wanting to play like him.
Of course, nobody can hold a candle to his sound and style, but I got a kick out of wanting to
be a 'Danny Gatton'.
It's a shame at this point, there is not heaps of available on Danny material available.
I don't think people realize how great a guitar picker he was because of the lack of audio/visual
currently present that's available.
This guy 'chits' all over so many of the 'so called' acclaimed guitar greats.

Hopefully a documentary will open the eyes of the general public.

 

Danny is my favorite guitar slinger.

He could play anything.

88 Elmira Street is a superb album and still gets regular play in my home along with New York Stories and Relentless.

His passing is one of musics biggest tragedies, IMHO.

Still have my Guitar Player Magazines. The Greatest Unknown Guitarist and the issue published after his death “Danny decided he did not want to play guitar anymore” chokes me up to this day.

 

Redneck Jazz Explosion-live at the Cellar Door is another great release. He and Buddy Emmons were really in sync.

 

Yes!

88 Elmira Street is my favorite!

At the Cabooze in Minneapolis on the Cruisin Duces tour.

Mind bloggingly good guitarist and musician. I could practice for a hundred years and I still wouldn't come close to his ability.

 

Out in May...

 

i only know 88 elmira st. i was listening a few weeks ago for the first time in years. i had a sudden urge to hear "in my room"

 

first time I saw danny was with redneck jazz in early 1979. my bass player who also played pedal steel said we should go to see buddy Emmons. I hadn't heard danny before that night and we both walked away speechless. they came back to town a couple of months later and I had the chance to talk to danny and buddy. a couple of years later I heard danny would be joining Robert Gordon. I already knew Robert and his bass player tony garnier, now with Dylan. I saw them together several times and after that I saw danny whenever he came to town. I saw him many times and got to know him a bit. one night I attended a danny show and ran into jack casady of Jefferson airplane/hot tuna fame. that was when I found out they grew up together and played in bands in the 50's. a couple of weeks later there was a show billed as jack casady and the degenerates which was acoustic hot tuna followed by danny and his band with jack and jorma kaukonen. it was a fun night. later on my brother jeff tamarkin the music journalist and I were interviewed for the bio on danny called unfinished business.

https://www.amazon.com/Unfinished-Business-Times-Danny-Gatton/dp/087930748X

 

Danny Gatton and Roy Buchanan would have head cutting contests over the phone. At least that's what I heard. Pretty funny.

 

I have an autographed LP, thanks to my former girlfriend who went backstage, bought the album and asked Danny to sign it. I have the CD too. There is some great playing on this record. The Nitpickin' track is a good representation of everything Danny could do with a guitar. Overall the record has an old fashioned sound harking back to the early 60s which I believe is why his music will never really catch on with a wider audience.

Other favorite records are Redneck Jazz Explosion with Buddy Emmons, Relentless with Joey DeFrancesco, and the live CD recorded in September 1994 just a month before he took his life. I still remember the fall day a friend of mine and myself stopped into our favorite record store only to have the owner tell us that Danny killed himself. We were stunned in disbelief.