1944-2023
Remembering maxi-instrumentalist slide guitar master David Lindley, who died at the age of 78 after a long illness
On Friday 3 March, Douglas Reynolds, longtime friend of renowned slide guitar maestro David Lindley, announced his death via the David Lindley Medical Fundraiser. The level of public support received is unsurprising considering the effect Lindley’s art had on the world.
Born on 21 March 1944 in San Marino, California, his introduction to music was early, with his father John’s extensive collection of 78s directing him towards an abundance of musical styles, including Korean folk and Indian sitar music, both of which would influence his own mesmeric style of fusion; music his friend Ben Harper considered to be “straight up sorcery”.
California in the early 60s was one of the most eclectic musical hubs of the world, and Lindley’s talent was such that by his late teens he was considered the state’s best young instrumentalist, going on to win the Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest five times (there was one particularly dramatic final between Lindley and Taj Mahal and two intense Flamenco and Calypso banjo versions of John Henry, with Lindley emerging victorious). It was an accolade that saw his notoriety rise, helped by his first main band, Kaleidoscope, a psychedelic folk group, originally formed by Lindley, Solomon Feldthouse, Chris Darrow, Chester Crill and John Vidican. Lindley modestly mentioned in the San Diego Troubadour that Kaleidoscope “were different from other bands”, praising Feldthouse as the member who “could sing, play the 12-string and Flamenco guitar. I’d get together with him and he’d make things interesting.”
By his late teens in the early 60s, Lindley was considered California’s best young instrumentalist, going on to win the Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest five times
A Beacon From Mars was probably the band’s best album, with songs such as the 12-minute title track and the epic Easterntinged Taxim expanding on the promise of their debut album, Side Trips, and showing the creative energy of the group. Various changes in personnel through the years took the shine off for Lindley, who claimed that “if Solomon wasn’t part of it, it wasn’t really Kaleidoscope”, and the band split at the end of 1969.
Soon after the 70s began, Lindley became an in-demand session musician, moving to the UK to play with Terry Reid and then being picked up by Jackson Browne, a career-defining meeting. Browne spotted Lindley at the Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest in 1972, where Lindley was a judge (Browne tells Fretboard Journal that spotting Lindley was “like something from The Wild Bunch, someone saying, ‘Look, it’s him, it’s Lindley’”) and decided to offer him a spot on his album For Everyman. T
