Guitar Shorty
(born David William Kearney
, September 8 1939, Houston, Texas) is an American blues guitarist. Due to both his musical talents and performing stage antics such as somersaults and back flips, he has been considered "among the leading live acts on the blues scene." [1] [2]
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GUITAR SHORTY TICKETS
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History
Shorty was born in Houston but grew up mainly in
Kissimmee,
Florida where be began playing the guitar at an early age and began heading a band not long after. During his time in
Tampa Bay, Florida, he received his nickname, Guitar Shorty, when it mysteriously showed up on the marquee of the club he was playing as 'The Walter Johnson Band featuring Guitar Shorty.'
[3] He steadily began to garner accloades from his peers and, at the age of 16, he joined the
Ray Charles Band for a year.
He then recorded his first single in 1957, "You Don't Treat Me Right", under the direction of
Willie Dixon when Dixon saw him playing with the
Walter Johnson orchestra.
Eventually, he would join
Guitar Slim's band and move to
New Orleans,
Louisiana.
While in New Orleans, Shorty also fronted his own band which played regularly at the
Dew Drop Inn where he was joined by special guests such as
T-Bone Walker,
Big Joe Turner and
Little Richard.
Not one to stay in one place long, Shorty next moved to the
West Coast at 19 in order to play with
Sam Cooke. He played up and down the west coast and
Canada until he met his future wife, Marcia, in
Seattle,
Washington. His new wife turned out to be the half-sister of
Jimi Hendrix, who attended several of Shorty's gigs and possibly being influenced by Shorty.
The following years were both good and bad; to get by at one point even, Shorty made an appearance on
Chuck Barris'
Gong Show
, winning first prize for performing the song "They Call Me Guitar Shorty" while balanced on his head.
Shorty and his wife eventually settled in
Los Angeles,
California.
In 1989, he released his first
album On the Rampage
on Olive Branch Records. He went on his tour to the
UK in 1991, and there he recorded
My Way or the Highway
with
Otis Grand which came out on
JSP Records that year. This won him a
W.C. Handy Award and garnering him interest from labels in the
United States. Shorty soon got a record deal with New Orleans based
Black Top Records.
Topsy Turvy
, his first on Black Top, came out in 1993. The album featured some fresh new songs as well as remakes of 3 classic numbers from his Pull days back in 1959. He released two more albums from the label in the 1990s. When Black Top folded in 1999, Shorty moved to Evidence Music, and released
I Go Wild!
in 2001.
In 2002, he featured on the
Bo Diddley tribute album
Hey Bo Diddley - A Tribute!
, performing the song "Don't Let It Go (Hold On To What You Got)".
His 2004 album
Watch Your Back
and his 2006 album
We the People
have seen his best work yet with both charting on the
Billboard Top Blues Albums at numbers eleven and twelve, respectively.
Another musician, John Henry Fortescue (1923–1976) was also called as Guitar Shorty.
Discography
- 1989 On the Rampage
- Olive Branch
- 1991 My Way or the Highway
- JSP
- 1993 Topsy Turvy
- Black Top
- 1995 Get Wise to Yourself
- Black Top
- 1996 Billie Jean Blues
- Collectables
- 1998 Roll Over, Baby
- Black Top
- 2001 I Go Wild!
- Evidence
- 2004 Watch Your Back
- Alligator Records
- 2006 We the People
- Alligator Records
- 2006 ''The Best of Guitar Shorty: The Long and Short of It - Shout! Factory
References
- The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings by Tony Russel, Chris Smith, et al. pg 231.
- Allmusic Biography of Guitar Shorty
- Official Guitar Shorty biography