Jimmy Nolen

b. 3 April 1934, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, d. 18 December 1983, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The inventor of the ‘Chicken Scratch' and thus the father of funk guitar, Nolen was the archetypal sideman who also had a fitful solo recording career. After learning the violin, he took up the guitar at 14, inspired by T-Bone Walker. Singer Jimmy Wilson saw him in a Tulsa club and brought him back to Los Angeles, where Nolen began his recording career backing trumpeter Monte Easter and Chuck Higgins, and under his own name for John Fullbright's Elko label. In the autumn of 1956, he reco...