Larry Carlton Comes to Riverhead: Mr. 335's Life in Music

If you’ve drawn breath over the past half-century plus and haven’t been completely cut off from society, chances are you’ve heard Larry Carlton play. As one of the most sought-after sessions guitarists of the 1970s and ’80s, Carlton has appeared on 3,000-plus recording sessions and appeared on 150-plus gold and platinum albums.

Best known for his work with Steely Dan on a number of albums including Aja, The Royal Scam and Katy Lied, the California native also earned kudos for his work on albums ranging from Billy Joel’s Piano Man, John Lennon’s Rock ‘n’ Roll and Barbra Streisand’s Stoney End to Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall and Aaron Neville’s Warm Your Heart. And that doesn’t even include his work as a solo artist whose charted hits include “Hill Street Blues (theme)” along with versions of “Sleepwalk” and “Minute By Minute.” It’s an extensive history the semi-retired six-string master plans to delve into when he hits the stage on this current string of dates.

“This show that I’ve been doing over the past few years has been really fun for us,” Carlton said. “It’s a six-piece band including me. We have two horns. Obviously, we’re doing some of my most recognizable tunes for the audience. But then, we do a section where I tell the story about how I was invited to be in The Crusaders.

“With the two horns, tenor sax and trombone, we can then play the Crusaders sound,” he continued. “My audience has grown older with me, so they remember these things. We do the same thing with the Steely Dan stuff. We tell some stories and then play some of the most recognizable solos I did with those guys. The audience gets to do a little remembering also. Let’s see it from the guy that was there. It really boils down to what tunes people are going to want to hear, especially with The Crusaders. It’s really a fun little show for both me and everyone at the show.”

Carlton’s guitar journey began when he started taking lessons when he was about 6. It all started with a fascination he had with an acoustic guitar at his grandmother’s house at the age of 4: “My parents told me when I was old enough to hold this big old acoustic guitar which had no name on it, I could take lessons. When I was 6, I was physically big enough to hold this guitar.”

The precocious string-bender quickly evolved into become a world-class prodigy who was bounced between leading junior high school talent shows to being asked to sit in with storied country music fiddler Spade Cooley when Carlton was only 12. Before long, the 14-year-old was being ferried to a local live music venue by his mom to play with musicians nearly a decade his senior three times a week.

“In junior high school, I was already playing Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon with a group in a supper club,” Carlton explained. “I remember I was making $20 a night and for a junior high schooler, that wasn’t bad. My mom would drive me, sit through all five sets and then drive me home. I’d fall asleep in the back of a car and we’d get up again and do it again on Saturday. There was lots of experience.”

By his early 20s, Carlton’s nimble playing on his trusty Gibson 335 and the melodic tone he created was getting noticed and session offers were rolling in on a consistent basis. It was his work arranging Joan Baez’s 1972 studio effort Diamonds & Rust that got him noticed by the Steely Dan camp.

“Sometime after that album came out was when I got the call from Steely Dan’s office wanting to know if I wanted to come to an overdub. I came in and it was the Katy Lied album and they needed a rhythm guitar part. We did two takes and we were done. And Donald [Fagen] said, ‘Man, you know how many people we’ve tried to get to play a rhythm part on this? That was just great.’ I went outside with Walter [Becker] just to hang out and get to know each other a little bit. They had obviously been using wonderful, wonderful players and my name wasn’t on the list until then. I asked Walter how they happened to call me now. He said, ‘I hate Joan Baez music. I wanted to meet the guy who could make her sound that good.’ We connected musically. It wasn’t because of The Crusaders. It was because of them hearing what I did to make other people’s records sound good.”

Larry Carlton will be performing on September 19 at The Suffolk, 118 E. Main Street, Riverhead. For more information, visit thesuffolk.org or call 631-727-4343.

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