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LARRY GARNER (USA)
Friday, July 4th, 19.00

Larry Garner - guitar, vocals
Terry Smith - drums
Miguel Hernandez - bass
Raphael Wressnig - keyboards

Click here for the website of
Larry Garner..

Larry Garner was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1952 and was raised around Baton Rouge.

He has been influenced by many of the Baton Rouge blues scene: Lonesome Sundown, Silas Hogan, Henry Gray, and Guitar Kelly. He writes his own material and this reflects his upbringing and surroundings.

Larry had his first guitar at eleven years old and he tells a great story in his live act about being taught a blues lick, which he practised and practised and was then "encouraged" by his proud parents to play at the church.
You need to see his arm movements, as he tells the story, to fully understand the level of skill he had reached..

He then moved through various musical styles before, rather inevitably, settling on The Blues. Larry served in Korea, still playing The Blues and then returned to Baton Rouge to get married. A family followed and he got a good job with Dow Chemical while playing Blues gigs in the evenings.

As Larry continued to play further afield from Baton Rouge he started to reach a wider audience and in 1988 he won the BB King "Lucille" Award for "Doghouse Blues".

The big break came in 1992 at the Burnley Blues Festival in England, where he was a big hit and this led to the London based JSP records signing Larry in 1993 (To general disapproval from his parents!) and "Double Dues" and "Too Blues" rapidly followed. Allegedly "Too Blues" was so called because a record company
had turned him down in the past because his music was - "Too Blues"!

The Gitanes Jazz label in France (Owned by Verve) heard the JSP recordings and when Larry made another storming live appearance, this time in the "New Morning" club in Paris, they decided to sign him.

Subsequently "You Need To Live A Little" came out in 1995 to be followed by "Baton Rouge" in 1996

Larry left Verve in 1997 and subsequently he recorded " Standing Room Only " with the German Ruf label (Luther Allison recorded on the same label).

These days Larry seems to be touring all the time and if you get the chance, go to see him, because the man is definitely worth seeing live!

I first came across Larry's work when I found a single track on a sampler album that I just could not get out of my head. That track was "Thought I had the Blues" from his second album for the JSP label, "Too Blues".

When I first searched for any fan sites on the web I was astonished to find not one existed. In fact all I could turn up were a couple of old reviews of the first two albums and a couple of photos..

Thanks to some feedback from a couple of readers who saw my first humble attempt at a web page (How did you find it?!), I have found out that Larry often tours in the UK! As a result I first went to see him at "The Brook" in Southampton in June 1997 and you can find a review on another page.

From: http://web.ukonline.co.uk/larry.garner/

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