Stringman David Lindley's One-Man Band Stretches Far And Wide

By John Roos

It wouldn’t be hard for the uninitiated to dismiss David Lindley as somewhat of a curious novelty act. There’s his long, scraggly hair, mutton chops and relentless polyester wardrobe. All those odd songs like “SUV’s Suck,” “Tiki Torches at Twilight,” “Cat Food Sandwiches,” “Tu ber cu lucas And The Sinus Blues,” among others. Heck, some might even mistake him for Weird Al.

But don’t let this playful eccentricity fool you because this singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist is a master of practically all stringed instruments on our planet. Period.

Although perhaps best-known for his flat-toned, lap steel slide guitar work heard on numerous 1970’s-era Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt and Warren Zevon songs, Mr. Dave—as he’s fondly known—has ventured deeply into exploring world music sounds and rhythms to reap great spiritual rewards. From his assortment of 1920’s Hawaiian guitars and the Turkish cumbash and saz to the Egyptian oud and Irish bouzouki, Lindley owns over 100 different stringed instruments. In fact, at a concert a few years back at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, a mesmerized fan watching Lindley pickin’ one of these exotic instruments shouted out the question, “What do you call that?”

To which Lindley responded: “Mi-i-i-i-ne!”

Lindley’s career began in the ‘60’s with the psychedelic-tinged band Kaleidoscope, blossomed when he formed his great band El Rayo X in the ‘80s, and then he recorded several records and toured as a duo in the `90s with partners including national treasure Ry Cooder, Jordanian percussionist Hani Naser, avant-garde guitarist and ethnomusicologist Henry Kaiser, and American drummer Wally Ingram. (Lindley’s 1991 collaboration with Kaiser involved a two-week field recording expedition to Madagascar which produced six albums of Malagasy music, including the Grammy-nominated “A World Out of Time Volume 2.”)

Even though Lindley has been critically-praised for decades, and admired by his peers, he has never reaped the commercial rewards he’s rightly due. And don’t get him started about his years recording for Elektra Records, which claims Lindley still owes them money after subtracting the cash advances against his disappointing album sales.

Fast forward to the more recent past and present and the Claremont-based Lindley, now 75, operates mostly as a solo acoustic act out of economic necessity. In fact, his last “new” release was the 2016 re-release on Wounded Bird Records of his 1985 recording titled “Mr. Dave,” which was previously only available as a hard-to-find import. Like most independent musicians operating on a modest budget, Lindley relies primarily on income earned from regularly touring at venues such as the Museum of Making Music (MoMM), where he performs Friday night before a sold-out audience.

Even without new music to share and promote, what makes these live performances so intriguing is that Lindley never takes his audience, no matter the size, for granted. Plus, he continues to explore new musical possibilities because as he told me back in 1998 during an interview for the Los Angeles Times, “There’s a certain texture . . . a sonic thing that happens whenever you bring something new to something old. Like on (Noah Lewis’) `Minglewood Blues.’ I don’t know of anyone else who plays it like I do with a bouzouki, so it’s got its own unique thing. It sounds like three-fourths of a 12-string guitar.” (For a look and listen, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLq9HgGP8G8.)

Still, as much as Lindley champions more exposure for a variety of global music and cultures, he warned then against putting too much thinking into it because you might fall prey to over-analyzing at the expense of just grooving.

Lindley proffered: “The mental stress could blow your brains out, which is not good. I find the stuff you listen to with your heart stays with you longer and causes less headaches. Just absorb the music and let it wash over you.”

Even something silly like “Cat Food Sandwiches.”

*David Lindley performs solo Friday at the Museum of Making Music (MoMM), 5790 Armada Dr., Carlsbad; (760) 438-5996. 7 p.m. Sold-out. www.museumofmakingmusic.org.