David Lindley

David Lindley (born David Perry Lindley in San Marino, California, on 21 March 1944; died 3 March 2023) was an American musician notable for his work with Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, and other rock musicians. He worked extensively in other genres as well, performing with artists as varied as Curtis Mayfield and Dolly Parton. He mastered such a wide variety of instruments that Acoustic Guitar magazine referred to Lindley, not as a multi-instrumentalist, but instead as a "maxi-instrumentalist" in a cover story about his career to date in 2005. The majority of the instruments that Lindley played were string instruments. They included (but were not limited to) the acoustic and electric guitar, upright and electric bass guitar, banjo, lap steel guitar, mandolin, hardingfele, bouzouki, cittern, bağlama, gumbus, charango, cümbüş, oud, weissenborn, and zither. Lindley was a founding member of the 1960s band Kaleidoscope.

Career:

As a teenager, Lindley took to playing the banjo and the fiddle. By his late teens he was acknowledged as an award winning player having won the Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest five times. From 1966 to 1970, Lindley was part of the eclectic psychedelic band Kaleidoscope. Between his work in the studio as a session musician or on tour as a sideman or bandleader, Lindley has worked on learning new instruments. He was the leader of his own band El Rayo-X from 1981 to 1983, which produced three studio and two live albums.

Work with other artists:

Lindley is especially remembered for his work as a session musician. He contributed to recordings and live performances by Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, Linda Ronstadt, Curtis Mayfield, James Taylor, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Terry Reid, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart and Joe Walsh. He also collaborated with fellow guitarists Ry Cooder and Henry Kaiser. Artist Ben Harper credited Lindley's distinctive slide guitar style as a major influence on his own playing and in 2006 Lindley sat in on Harper's album Both Sides of the Gun. He is remembered in the guitar community for his use of "cheap" instruments sold at Sears department stores and intended for amateurs. He uses these for the unique sound they produce, especially with a slide. In the early 1990s, he toured and recorded with Hani Naser adding percussive instruments to his solo performances, and his instrumental repertoire which he uses in his session work. In recent years, Lindley has also toured extensively and recorded with reggae percussionist Wally Ingram. It is his touring around the world that has exposed him to part of his array of instruments that appear exotic to many Western audiences.

Lindley's voice is heard in the version of Stay performed by Jackson Browne. Browne's version is a continuation of The Load Out, and its refrain is sung in progressively higher vocal ranges. The refrain of "Oh won't you stay, just a little bit longer" is sung first by Browne, then by Rosemary Butler, then by Lindley in falsetto. His slide solo in Jackson Browne's Running On Empty is one of his best-known collaborative works as well.

Lindley joined Jackson Browne for a tour of Spain in 2006. Love Is Strange: En Vivo Con Tino, a 2-CD set of recordings from that tour, was released May 11, 2010, with Browne and Lindley touring together starting in June of that year. The duo also won an Independent Music Award for Best Live Performance Album.

Instruments:

Lindley collected an extremely large collection of rare, unusual looking and sounding instruments. There is a large and detailed display of quite a few rare guitars, as well as instruments that originate from the Middle East and other parts of the world. Lindley has listed and categorized many of them on his [url=http://www.davidlindley.com]website but admits that he has "absolutely no idea" how many instruments he owns and plays, having gathered them since the 1960s.

Solo discography (excerpts):

1967 : Side Trips (Epic Records – with Kaleidoscope

1967 : A Beacon from Mars (Epic Records – With Kaleidoscope)

1969 : Incredible Kaleidoscope (Epic Records)

1970 : Bernice (Epic Records) with Kaleidoscope

1981 : El Rayo-X (Asylum)

1982 : Win This Record! (Asylum)

1983 : El Rayo Live

1985 : Mr. Dave

1988 : Very Greasy (Elektra) #174 US

1991 : OST The Indian Runner with Jack Nitzsche

1991 : A World Out of Time (Shanachie) with Henry Kaiser in Madagascar, three volumes

1994 : The Sweet Sunny North (Shanachie Records) with Henry Kaiser in Norway, two volumes

1994 : Wheels of the Sun by Kazu Matsui (Hermans records) with Hani Naser

1994 : Official Bootleg #1: Live in Tokyo Playing Real Good with Hani Naser

1995 : Cooder-Lindley Family Live at the Vienna Opera House with Ry Cooder

1995 : Song of Sacajawea (Rabbit Ears)

1995 : Official Bootleg #2: Live All Over the Place Playing Even Better with Hani Naser

2000 : El Rayo-X Live!! (Ulftone Music) with El Rayo-X in the mid '80s

2000 : Twango Bango Deluxe (with Wally Ingram)

2001 : Twango Bango II (with Wally Ingram)

2003 : Twango Bango III (with Wally Ingram)

2004 : Live in Europe (with Wally Ingram)

2008 : Big Twang (solo)