Richard Lloyd is known for his work as one of the founding members of Television. Alongside fellow guitar wielder, Tom Verlaine, Lloyd helped pioneer what many now call “art punk.”
However, pre-Television, Lloyd rubbed shoulders with many a bona fide star – including one of blues’ all-time greats.
The guitarist had just quit a second high school before graduation and moved to Boston. During that crucial period, Lloyd managed to infiltrate a network of musicians who knew Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, which was how, one day, he found himself backstage at jazz hotspot, The Jazz Workshop.
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“One thing I learned from that was that if you keep your mouth shut, you will survive a lot longer in delicate social conditions,” he tells Guitar World. “I went backstage, entered the dressing room, sat down in a chair, and didn’t say anything.
“I was just sitting there, and John Lee Hooker was working with someone, and he turned to me, pointed his finger, and said, ‘Sonny, what you do?’ I said, ‘I play guitar.’ He said, ‘Are you good?’ I said, ‘Well…’ He said, ‘No, you’re great, man. I’m gonna call you up on stage. You'd better come, or I’ll chase you down. You’re gonna sit in with the band.’”
The blues master even went on to impart his own wisdom about playing the electric guitar. “He told me, ‘Come in closer, I’ll tell you the secret of playing electric guitar,’” Lloyd recalls.
“I went over to listen, and he said, ‘Bend the strings. Learn one string, how to go up and down, bend the notes, and shake them until the women go, ‘Whoa!’ and the men go, ‘Ahhh.’ That’s a literal translation. I’ll never forget that. Since then, I’ve been bending and shaking the strings.”
In related news, Lloyd once recounted how giving Jimi a pep talk didn’t quite work out the way he planned.
Guitar World’s interview with Richard Lloyd will be published in the coming weeks.
