Guitar Shorty

When he wasn't turning somersaults, doing backward flips, and standing on his head -- all while playing, of course -- Guitar Shorty was known to cut loose with savagely slashing licks on his instrument. After some lean years, his latter-day albums for Black Top, Evidence, and Alligator proved that all that energy translated vividly onto tape. Born David Kearney on September 8, 1939, in Houston, Texas, he started playing guitar at an early age. His early influences included fellow blues guitar slingers B.B. King, Guitar Slim, T-Bone Walker, and Earl Hooker. By the time he was...