- Lafayette Thomas
Lafayette Thomas (
June 13 1928 , Shreveport,Louisiana –May 20 1977 , Brisbane,California [ [http://users.efortress.com/doc-rock/1970.html Dead Rock Stars Club - accessed December 2007] ] [ [http://wc09.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll All Music Guide data - accessed December 2007] ] ) was an Americanblues singer , andguitarist .Career
He first heard blues guitar from his uncle
Jesse Thomas in Shreveport, but Thomas did not play professionally until 1947, in San Francisco,California .The bulk of his recordings were with
Jimmy McCracklin 's combo in the 1950s and 1960s. He solos with audacious brilliance on his own "Standing in the Back Door Crying" [http://wc09.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:dcfixmtkld6e] , recorded at a 1954 McCracklin session withModern Records .cite book
first= Tony
last= Russell
year= 1997
title= The Blues - From Robert Johnson toRobert Cray
edition=
publisher=Carlton Books Limited
location= Dubai
pages= p. 177
id= ISBN 1-85868-255-X]In 1958 he moved to New York, working with Sam Price and playing on Bluesville
album dates byMemphis Slim andLittle Brother Montgomery , but soon went back west, though he let his music lapse.Late in 1968, he cut his first sides for the World Pacific
record label called "Oakland Blues", acompilation album of artists from that notable blues city. He remained semi active in the early 1970s working with Sugar Pie Desanto.Thomas died from a heart attack, at the age of 48. In his 1977 obituary Tom Mazzolini, producer of the
San Francisco Blues Festival wrote: "Unquestionably the finest guitarist to emerge from the San Francisco-Oakland blues scene, there is hardly a guitarist around here today who doesn't owe a little something to Lafayette Thomas . . ." [ [http://www.baddogblues.com/archives/7.04/special.htmJimmy McCracklin & Lafayette Thomas] ]ee also
*
West Coast blues References
External links
* [http://www.wirz.de/music/thomasla.htm Lafayette Thomas discography]
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