Before offering a few modest observations about the music, life, and times of David Lindley, a man who never met a stringed instrument he couldn’t master and who died on March 3, I’ll make two points, both somewhat contrarian.
In the flood of obituaries and tributes that have appeared since his death at age 78, one reads ad nauseam that Lindley, a lifelong Los Angeles resident whose most productive years were the 1970s and ’80s, “help[ed] shape the sound of West Coast soft rock,” as Guitar Player’s writer put it. While Lindley’s impact on Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, and other Southern California soft-rockers was indeed considerable, he was equally, if not more, a firebrand, especially on his favorite instrument, the lap-steel guitar, which he essentially introduced to mainstream rock. In fact, it was on a song by one of those masters of mellow, Browne’s “Running on Empty,” that Lindley gave us one of rock guitar’s iconic moments: the swooping lap-steel accompaniment and two scorching solos that one can, without too much exaggeration, be credited with rescuing Browne’s flagging career.1
And while it’s true that Lindley’s legacy, provide just as much pleasure today as they did 40 years ago.
