You probably may not even know it, but odds are in your favor that you have the guitar sounds of Larry Carlton somewhere in your ipod or cd/album collection. Since the 1970s when he first came onto the music scene, Carlton has graced albums ranging from Michael Jackson to Sammy Davis Jr and Steely Dan, besides becoming a member of The Crusaders for some of their hippest releases. The gunshot injury which sidelined him during the height of his career would have overwhelmed many artists, but his faith in God brought him out of that trial and made his path as good as gold. “A righteous man may fall seven times, but will rise again” is the lifelong theme of one of God’s gracious gifts to the music scene. We recently caught up with Larry Carlton, who has just released a cooking acoustic album with Robben Ford, Unplugged. What comes across in this interview is the warmth, graciousness and gratitude for every day of life that Carlton has been given by his God.
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST ATTRACTION TO THE GUITAR?
There was an acoustic guitar at my grandmother’s house when I was like 4 years old. I was just fascinated with it. My parents appeased me by saying, “When you’re big enough to hold the guitar, you can take lessons. When I was about 6-6 ½ I was finally big enough to hold it, so I started taking lessons. That’s all that I know about it. I don’t know why.
WHEN DO YOU FEEL YOU’VE HAD YOUR OWN SOUND.
That’s actually never something I thought about, to tell you the truth. There was never a lightbulb moment or a light bulb season where I said to myself “Wow. I have my own sound.” I never thought in those terms at all. I just sound like me.
WHAT WERE THE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT HAD YOU JOIN THE CRUSADERS
I was starting to get busy as a studio player in late 1969. I got a call for a Friday night session sometime in 1970, because I was on the list of guitar players to call for a sessions. I wasn’t real real busy yet. So, I showed up for the session and Joe Sample was the keyboard player for the session. Before we do the actual recording, while we’re getting ready, you know, just setting up and plugging in Joe started playing the piano, and by the time I had plugged in, I just kind of joined in with him, playing my guitar. And then we did the session on Friday night. On Monday morning my phone rang; it was the C rusaders office saying “When can you record with the Crusaders? They’re in the studio right now.” That was how the Crusader 1 came about with me being on it.
WHAT HIT YOU ABOUT BEING WITH THEM? WHAT DID YOU LEARN?
What first hit me was that I was a fan of the Crusaders, or actually the Jazz Crusaders as they were first known, as a teenager, and I used to sit in my bedroom and play along with them on their records. So, to be called in to play with them was a real thrill because I loved their music already.
Their approach to playing instrumental music is the same approach that I still use a great deal today. They would come in with songs, but not really arrangements, but really good hooks and good melodies, and we’d develop the songs in the studio. That’s how the personality of each player would start to mould that tune into a band. I’ve made a lot of my records that way. Sometimes I’ll do fairly extensive demos, so that as soon as the guys on my sessions start playing the song, it already starts sounding like “The Larry Carlton Song” because I’ve worked out part of the piano part, part of the bass line, and then the guys from there put their stamp on it.
So the Crusaders would just come in, and we would just start playing a feel. Somebody would come up with a part, and somebody would come up with another part, and pretty soon we had an arrangement.
HOW DID YOU START OUT AS A STUDIO MUSICIAN?
In 1969 I started getting calls to do some demos because I had been doing some casuals with some guys who were already doing demos as well as master sessions. They recommended me. I started doing that 2 days a week for April Blackwood Music Publishing with some other musicians. Well, after a short amount of time, I became the arranger of those sessions by their request. So, the word was spreading from musicians, “hey, there’s this guy in town, and if you can’t get so and so, you oughta try him.” And so, word of mouth was really how it happened.
WHO WERE THE MAIN GUYS IN LA AT THAT TIME? LEE RITENOUR?
Ritenour didn’t start until much later. There was Louis Shelton; he was at the top of the heap for pop music. Then Tommy Tedesco, Dennis Budimir…and when I first started in the early 70s, there were two other guitar players. They didn’t read music, but they were more rock sounding. So, when producers wanted something a bit more edgy or maybe for that time a bit more contemporary, they would call these guys. You had David Cohen and Mike Deasy. Deasy was a real Hendrix-influenced kind of player. He didn’t read a note, but they would just have him come in and play whatever he felt like playing because it sounded more contemporary. They were very busy at the time, and David Cohen was a folk guitar player, so he was a really good finger picker. Those guys were still busy, but as the, shall you say, the level of musicianship got higher, meaning guys who could play AND read the music, their work started to diminish. They had a wonderful 6-8 year run, but the industry was changing.
THAT WAS AN APEX OF THE SCENE IN THE LATE 60s AND 70s.
I didn’t get involved the club scene at the time, like Donte’s and The Baked Potato, until the mid 70s. I remember going to The Baked Potato to hear Tom Scott and it was Max Bennett on bass, John Guerin on drums and Joe Sample was playing piano with them, and Dean Parks was on guitar! So, I show up and enjoyed listening to the guys, and towards the end of the set Tom said, “Do you want to sit in?” So I went up and played two tunes at the end of the set with them. Tom called the next morning and said, “You want to join a band?” That’s kind of how the LA Express came about; just by guys getting together and playing!
THAT WAS THE LA STUDIO AND TOUR BAND AT THE TIME. IT SEEMED LIKE THEY BACKED EVERYONE IN THOSE DAYS
Actually, I did the records, but I never toured with Joni. I was still too busy in the studio and had commitments with the Crusaders so that’s how Robben Ford got called to join the LA Express. When Tom heard that I couldn’t join, he had heard about this wonderful guitarist from San Francisco. So, that’s how Robben came into the scene.
HOW MUCH HAS THE RECORDING SCENE CHANGED?
I quit doing sessions for a living in 1982. So that’s 32 years ago, so I wasn’t involved in that slow transition from having the rhythm section in the room when we did it, but has changed with digital recording. I enjoy having Pro Tools now to work with , especially when I’m writing and working alone, so I like it.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR SPIRITUAL AWAKENINGTHAT OCCURRED EARLY IN YOUR CAREER. THIS HAD A FACTOR LATER IN YOUR SHOOTING INCIDENT
I don’t remember exactly what was the instigation of my “re-entrance” into religion. When I was in college, I did take a course on ”religions.” A couple of my friends were Christians, and they didn’t force anything on me. I don’t know what really got my interest again, but I started reading a lot of books on different religions. I remember there was one night in Philadelphia after a show. I had been reading these books and digesting and thinking about religion. I just remember coming to a conclusion one night after a gig. I was lying in bed and I just told the Lord, “I don’t know any more about you than I did 2 months ago, but I choose you.” That was the beginning of my relationship with the Holy Spirit.
DID IT IMMEDIATELY CHANGE YOUR CAREER OR RELATIONSHIPS IN MUSIC?
I was excited about my awakening and my relationship. It didn’t affect my playing at the time at all. But that’s a slow process of the change that might happen, but I wasn’t looking for a change. It was just an interest that kept piquing me, so I kept doing research.
WHAT RELATIONSHIP IN YOUR LIFE WAS YOUR AWAKENING TO YOUR SHOOTING ACCIDENT?
My rededication to the Lord was in the fall of 83, and the shooting was in 1988.
HOW DO YOU RECONCILE THE NEAR FATAL ACCIDENT WITH YOUR FAITH
I think I have an oversimplified attitude towards it, and you can quote me on this. “Sh-t happens.” Christian, non-Christian, Buddhist, non-Buddhist. The world is going to happen. Sometimes it’s going to happen to me, and sometimes it’s going to happen to you. It depends on how you deal with it.
With that incident there wasn’t any change in my belief system. It was just a drag to go through it. I remember my son had just turned 5 years old when the shooting happened. It was the day after his birthday. Many months later, when I was well enough to see the kids, because their mom didn’t want me to see them in that condition, I remember my son asking, “Dad, why did they have to shoot YOU?” And, my honest answer to him was, “Why not, Trav; I’m just another daddy in this world.” It’s just the way the thing hit me. I’m not “special;” we’re all vulnerable to the world.
WHAT THEN HAPPENED WITH YOUR CAREER?
Well, I had to recover. ..My left arm was completely atrophied and paralyzed for months. When I finally started to get some rejuvenation in the nerves in my hand and arm, then I had to start playing to build up muscles. That’s why there was no touring or anything going on; it took up to eight months to get to where I could just start to play again.
WHEN YOU CAME BACK TO THE GUITAR, DID YOU FEEL YOUWERE PLAYING THE SAME WAY, OR WAS THERE A DIFFERENT TOUCH
It was brought to my attention from other people, it was not a self-awareness thing, but many people, when I started playing out again, would tell me at certain times, “Man, I’ve never heard you play like that. “ So, something had changed, but it wasn’t a conscious effort on my part.
I never met Sammy, he wasn’t at the session. And the same with Michael. Michael was in Australia, and Quincy (Jones) and I did “She’s Out of My Life.” Michael called in from Australia and we played it to him over the phone what we were doing.
DID YOU EVER TOUR WITH STEELY DAN WHEN YOU DID STUDIO WORK FOR THEM IN THE 70s?
I never did, but then about 2 ½ years ago, their office called and said, “They guys want to know if you’ll be a guest on 7 or 8 shows.” So, that was the first time ever I played live with them.
WHEN YOU HEAR YOUR OWN SOLOS ON THOSE RECORDS, WHAT GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND?
(Laughs)First, I have to back up a little ways. I was very surprised when the reaction came out to my playing on The Royal Scam. I had just gone and had done those sessions, and went home. I didn’t go home and say to my wife, “Hey, I just played my ass off today; wait until you hear it!” No, I just did the best I could do on those sessions and really enjoyed them and came home. Some months later Billboard Magazine did a review of The Royal Scam and were raving about this solo I did on “Kid Charlemagne,” calling it one of the three best licks in rock history.
Well, I looked at my wife and said, “We’ve got to listen to this; I have no idea what they’re talking about.” We put the record on and listened to “Kid Charlemagne,” and I remember at the end of it just looking at her and saying “it just sounds like me.”
I think that there was a real honesty and humility to me evaluating my work, and I’m so thankful that the world has responded to many of the things that I’ve played during my musical history. I mean, they’re not planned; I sure didn’t play them to get attention. I was just making music.
I never think in the terms of my music being appreciated. I believe in “the appropriateness of life.” I can expound a little bit on that. Even when I was becoming proficient in my teen years and people were paying a lot of attention to this young kid that was really good, my aspirations were never to be a rock star; my aspirations were to be a musician, and to play in smoky jazz clubs like my heroes did. In other words, my aspirations were smaller than what I’ve accomplished. I didn’t know that I was going to become a famous guitar player who played the “Kid Charlemagne” solo. That was never my intention. It was always about the music.
THAT’S LIKE THAT VERSE IN EPHESIANS, GOD GIVES US MORE THAN WE CAN EVER ASK OR IMAGINE.
Oh, yes, I’ve been so blessed.
WHAT WILL YOUR LEGACY BE?
That was asked only once before, once when I was in Paris doing a big venue. What came to me, and I don’t predetermine these things…I think my legacy could possibly be “taste.” That I raised the bar in taste playing the guitar.
ESPECIALLY DURING YOUR YOUNGER DAYS WHEN THE QUESTION WAS “WHO’S THE FASTEST GUNSLINGER IN TOWN” ON GUITAR
Yeah, and of course, timing was everything. My approach to music was appropriate for what was going on at the time. I’ve always said that I thought I was the perfect choice for the Steely Dan records that I did for the time that they were writing those songs because they were jazz influenced, harmonically very sophisticated, but were still pop music. And that’s exactly like my career.
AND THESE DAYS THE MUSICAL GENRES ARE SO STRINGENT. YOU WONDER IF A STEELY DAN COULD SURVIVE THESE DAYS
It’s an interesting thing, but that’s again the appropriateness of life. Life keeps going forward, you can never stay the same. I’ve told young guitarists over the last 25 years; the world does not need another Larry Carlton. That’s been done. We don’t need another Wes Montgomery. That’s been done. Be influenced by those which you like, but don’t try to be Wes. It ain’t gonna happen. Ya know?
I hope that’s a little bit eye opening to the young guys. Learn from me as much as you want. Steal from me as much as you want. But, don’t try to be me. In the end, just try to use the information that you have to play the music that you like.
WHAT DO YOU STILL WANT TO ACCOMPLISH
That’s a great question, because going on 7 years ago I started my own label with my manager, so I have the freedom to record any project, any kind of music at any time. And I want to! So, “accomplishment” is still consistent with my past in that I’m going to make the music that excites me, and then put it out and let the public judge it, if you will. What excites me is when I get an idea or a project that comes up I can go do it! For 17 years I was on major labels and didn’t quite have that level of freedom during most of that time.
So now, if I get inspired I can go do something and I hope everyone digs it because I sure enjoyed doing it!
IS THAT HOW YOUR RECENT RECORDINGS (LIVE IN TOKYO AND UNPLUGGED) WITH ROBBEN FORD CAME ABOUT?
Yeah, I’ve been a fan of Robben since I first met him in ’74 pr ’75. We played a bunch of shows together in the mid 70s at Donte’s Supper Club, and I was just a huge, huge fan. I’ve listened to him a lot over the 30 years after that, and he and I were doing a show in NYC in honor of Les Paul’s birthday and Les there as well as a house band with some other players. That’s when Robben and I had a chance after all of those years to just “visit.” I had been thinking about it, and I just said, “Hey, man, you want to just do something together maybe next year or the year after?” He said “Yeah!” and that’s how it came about.
ARE YOU SURPRISED BY THE RESULTS?
I think it turned out really, really good. I know that when I was writing my songs for the Live album, I had Robben in mind. Especially this one tune wrote called Burnable. I’m such a fan of Robben’s blues, especially when he takes it out. I was trying to write a vehicle that he could do that, night after night, while on tour!
FOR THE FRANCE UNPLUGED SHOW, DO YOU NOTICE A DIFFERENCE IN LEVELS OF APPRECIATION IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES?
Well, I’ve played there many, many times over the last 15 years and yeah, the part owner is also a video producer. He has been for the past 30 years. So I know with him shooting while I was performing was going to be really good, so I partnered with him, so I partnered with him and my production company.
To answer the other part of the question, Europe and Asia in my opinion still respond to artistry as opposed to hit records or to what is “popular.” They follow the artist that plays at the highest level that touches them, whether it is on the radio or not, they want to see artists play their thing. And, I’m really thankful for that, that they have an appreciation for real musicians, if you will, and not manufactured musicians.
ANYTHING PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU
I think that after all of these years, the people that you and I would call “my fans” pretty much know who I am as a man and a musician. And, I can’t ask for much more than that. I think we’ve been together long enough for everybody to have their opinion with who Larry Carlton is, and I’m totally comfortable with that.
IT SOUNDS LIKE YOUR FAME AND CAREER HAS HUMBLED YOU
I don’t know how far back to go to give you an example, but that’s a consistency in my character, if one could say that humbly! I mean, if you go back and read my interviews I don’t think many times you’ll see ego’d out, and I remind people in my interviews that when Steve Lukather and I did our album together, I think one of the quotes on the back of the album that was about our project as two guitar players who “put your ego aside and made the music.”
In this day of ego driven artists vying for a slice of the pie, it’s refreshing to see that there are still musicians who play their music, and ply their craft simply for the love of the art. Bach used to write at the top of each of his compositions “Jesu Juva” and close them with “Solo Gloria “Dei” which translated to asking God for help and thanking the Lord for the ability to write for His glory. The same could said about Carlton, who sees not only every day, but every note he plays as a gift from God. We fans have been the recipients of his blessings. Stay tuned for more gifts from above!!!