Sonny Landreth

“From the Reach” Sonny Landreth’s ninth album, is the first to be released on his own Landfall label. On it, the Louisiana-based slide guitar wizard does something unprecedented in his body of work, as he collaborates with five of the greatest guitar players on the planet – Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Robben Ford, Eric Johnson and Vince Gill – for some jaw-dropping performances. Also making a house call is legendary New Orleans pianist and singer Dr. John and iconic Gulf Coast troubadour Jimmy Buffett.

Bassist Dave Ranson was one of the first to be blown away by Sonny Landreth’s six-string prowess. He was 12 or 13, and he went to a Lafayette party where the budding virtuoso, a whole year older, was playing with his band. “He might’ve been 14, maybe even
15. I know I wasn’t drivin’,” Ranson recalls, thinking it was a tune by The Ventures he first heard coming from the youthful combo. “We just went, ‘Wow! These guys are good.'”

More than 30 years later — in cities around the globe — Ranson observes the ripple effect night after night from his onstage position as Landreth’s musical alter ego. “You see people just standing there with their mouths open,” he says, “It’s really great.” Journeyman drummer Organ signed on for a three-week tour in ’95 and has been part of the team ever since. “The thing about Sonny is he’s a great artist, he’s a great musician and a great songwriter. And when he puts something down it’s going to have it’s own identity, it’s own pulse, it’s own phrasing.” But, the California-based drummer adds, longtime partners Landreth and Ranson both leave room for him to find his own voice and “become part of the music with them I’ve heard that a million times.”