Rare Lonnie Mack Recording ‘Live In Louisville 1992’ To Be Released
Lonnie Mack: Live In Louisville 1992 will be released on Oct. 24, 2025, via UK-based Last Music Co. The rare live recording, known to have existed for decades, showcases the pioneering blues-rock wizard whose virtuosic six-string style directly influenced Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck and countless other disciples. Lonnie Mack: Live in Louisville 1992, the first commercial release of Lonnie Mack’s music since his passing in 2016, is available to pre-order HERE, including double black vinyl, CD, and digital formats.
“It’s a great honor to be able to inspire other artists,” Mack once said to the Cincinnati Inquirer. “What you do in this business, your whole thing is giving stuff away. But that makes you feel good; makes you feel like you’ve really done something.”
Born Lonnie McIntosh, the Indiana native was already a highly respected session man, playing for blues legends including Hank Ballard, Freddie King, and James Brown when he cut a pair of singles — an instrumental reworking of Chuck Berry’s “Memphis, Tennessee” and “Wham!” Those 1963 tunes ultimately revolutionized the rock guitar solo and launched a career that spanned over 40 years.
“Oreo Cookie Blues”
On July 23, 1992, Mack performed as a last-minute replacement in the summer concert series at Louisville’s Kentucky Center for the Arts; the show, also broadcast live, was recorded. That recently discovered and restored tape forms the basis of Lonnie Mack: Live in Louisville 1992.
Live in Louisville captures Mack in his element, performing before a rapt audience that is gobsmacked by his country- and gospel-tinged blues rock licks and blue-eyed soul vocals. Backed by drummer Jeff McAllister, keyboardist Denzil “Dumpy” Rice and bassist Bucky Lindsey, Mack covers much territory on these seven tracks. Four selections — including the blistering smashup of “Camp Washington Chili” and “If You Have to Know” and the sing-along “Satisfy Suzie” — are from 1990’s Lonnie Mack Live: Attack of the Killer V, the last album released during his lifetime. With the acoustic “Oreo Cookie Blues” and “Tough On Me, Tough On You,” Mack harkens back to the sound of his early ’70s Elektra Records albums. And of course, Live in Louisville includes a medley of the two hugely influential singles that built Mack’s reputation: “Memphis” and “Wham!”
The Louisville Courier-Journal’s concert review described the show as “an evening of amazing chops, deep blues and percolating grooves” and said of Mack, “His playing was full of fire and sounded 1963 fresh.”
Born in 1941 to sharecroppers and named after country harmonica ace Lonnie Glosson, Mack was raised not far from Kentucky. His early musical education came via the family’s radio, powered by a truck battery. Mack devoured the country, blues and gospel he heard over those airwaves, and when he was 7 years old, he traded his bicycle for a guitar. After his mother taught him his first guitar chords, he quickly took his place in the family’s bluegrass band. By the age of 13, he was performing professionally.
He quit school once he segued to playing roadhouses and juke joints. Influenced by Merle Travis, T-Bone Walker, Les Paul and Robert Ward (of the group that would become the Ohio Players), Mack combined their country, blues, R&B and jazz/pop influences into his unique style, which nodded to the burgeoning rockabilly sound but also drew on Black gospel and soul. His guitar sound was also unique — the product of a Gibson Flying V prototype outfitted with a tremolo arm and played through a vibrato-rich Magnatone amp.
Mack’s oversized tone thrilled the club crowds — and the fame-shy performer might have been content to stay in those small venues if a studio session-player gig hadn’t turned into his lucky break. At the tail end of a 1963 recording session with a female singing trio, Mack was offered 20 leftover minutes to cut something. He whipped out an instrumental reworking of Chuck Berry’s “Memphis, Tennessee,” then left on tour. Quickly released by Fraternity Records under the title “Memphis,” the record blew up, selling a million copies and reaching No. 5 on the Billboard pop chart. By the end of his tour, Mack was headlining. The song would prove to be a seminal event in the history of the electric guitar and a touchstone for generations of players to come, including Vaughan, Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Duane Allman, Dickey Betts, Neil Young, Danny Gatton and even Bootsy Collins.
Decades later, Guitar World magazine praised: “[Mack] attacked the strings with fast, aggressive single-string phrasing and a seamless rhythm style that significantly raised the guitar virtuoso bar and foreshadowed the arena-sized tones of guitar heroes to come. Well before the term was coined, ‘Memphis’ defined blues-rock.”
Mack followed “Memphis” with another virtuosic instrumental, “Wham!” Legend has it that his ingenious use of the tremolo bar on this record inspired the nickname given to tremolo arms, forever after known as whammy bars. The singles were followed by an excellent album, The Wham of that Memphis Man!, that deftly exhibited his hybrid sound and showcased his powerful vocals.
But then Mack slipped into one of the occasional stagnant periods that marked his career almost as much as his incredible talent. The small Fraternity label had trouble supporting Mack, and the British Invasion came, led, ironically, by players he had inspired. In the late ’60s, he rebounded, signing with Elektra Records. While not commercially successful, the trio of Elektra albums Mack released spotlighted his growing prowess as a songwriter. He also contributed bass to two tracks on the Doors’ classic album, Morrison Hotel.
In the ’70s, Mack withdrew again, operating a campground in Indiana where hippies, bikers and rednecks gathered for music-filled barbecues. But that happy period was cut short by an altercation with an off-duty police officer that resulted in Mack getting shot.
Mack then moved around for a few years before disciple Vaughan lured him to Austin, Texas, where he coproduced Mack’s acclaimed 1985 comeback, Strike Like Lightning. The album tour featured guest appearances by acolytes Ry Cooder, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood. The most successful run of Mack’s career culminated in a Carnegie Hall blues summit that teamed the “Memphis” man with Albert Collins and Roy Buchanan, followed by a tour with Buchanan and Betts. After recording the 1990 live album, Mack returned to playing smaller venues. He stopped touring altogether in 2004, playing only occasional tribute and benefit shows.
In 2001, he was inducted into the International Guitar Hall of Fame, and in 2005, he joined the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Lonnie Mack, the man Rolling Stone lauded as a pioneer of rock guitar soloing and a vital influence on an entire generation of guitarists, died on April 21, 2016. Physical copies of Lonnie Mack: Live in Louisville 1992 are available to pre-order HERE, including double black vinyl, CD, and digital formats.
Lonnie Mack: Live in Louisville 1992
Track List
1. Camp Washington Chili/If You Have To Know (Medley) 9:53
2. Satisfy Suzie (6:14)
3. Stop (9:22)
4. Memphis/Wham! (Medley) (7:54)
5. Oreo Cookie Blues (4:58)
6. Tough on Me, Tough on You (with Bucky Lindsey) 4:20
7. Cincinnati Jail 9:47
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