Lonnie McIntosh (July 18, 1941 – April 21, 2016), known by his stage name Lonnie Mack, was an influential American pioneer of blues-rock music and rock guitar soloing.
Mack emerged in 1963, with his proto-blues-rock debut LP, The Wham of that Memphis Man. The album's vocals established Mack's renown as a blue-eyed soul singer. However, he gained wider recognition for the album's electric guitar instrumentals, passages, and interludes. In them, he introduced "edgy, aggressive, loud, and fast" blues solos to the prevailing chords-and-riffs format of early rock guitar. They raised the bar for rock guitar proficiency, energized the electric guitar's rise to the top of soloing instruments in rock, and soon became a "model" for the emerging lead guitarists of blues-rock and Southern rock.Shortly after the album's release, however, the massively popular "British Invasion" dealt Mack a career setback. He toured the roadhouse circuit and did R&B session work until the height of the blues-rock era, in 1968. At that point, Rolling Stone magazine rediscovered his pioneering debut album, and Los Angeles' Elektra Records signed him to a three-album contract. He immediately graduated to major performance venues, but his multi-genre Elektra recordings missed the mark of his blues-rock appeal. In 1971, he left Elektra and became a low-profile country music recording artist, roadhouse performer, sideman, and music-venue proprietor.Mack resurfaced in 1985, with the blues-rock LP Strike Like Lightning, a "victory-lap" promotional tour featuring celebrity guitarist sit-ins, and a concert at Carnegie Hall. In 1990, he released another well-received blues-rock album, Lonnie Mack Live! Attack of the Killer V, after which he retired as a recording artist. He continued to perform, mostly in smaller venues, until 2004.
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