David Perry Lindley (March 21, 1944 – March 3, 2023) was an American musician who founded the rock band El Rayo-X and worked with many other performers including Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, Warren Zevon, Curtis Mayfield and Dolly Parton. He mastered such a wide variety of instruments that Acoustic Guitar magazine referred to him not as a multi-instrumentalist but instead as a “maxi-instrumentalist.” The majority of the instruments that Lindley played are string instruments, including violin, acoustic and electric guitar, upright and electric bass, banjo, mandolin, dobro, hardingfele, bouzouki, cittern, bağlama, gumbus, charango, cümbüş, oud and zither. He was described as “the unparalleled master of the lap steel guitar” in the rock music sphere, and an expert in Hawaiian-style slide guitar blues. Lindley was a founding member of the 1960s psychedelic band Kaleidoscope and worked as musical director for several touring artists. He occasionally scored and composed music for film.
David Perry Lindley was born in San Marino, California, to Margaret (née Wells) and John Royal Young Lindley (brother of actress Loretta Young) on March 21, 1944. When Lindley was growing up in Los Angeles, his father had an extensive collection of 78 rpm records that included Korean folk and Indian sitar music, as well as Spanish classical guitarists Andrés Segovia and Carlos Montoya. Lindley took up the violin at age three, and kept at it despite breaking the fragile bridge. He then moved on to the baritone ukulele in his early teens. Next he learned the banjo. By his late teens, he had won the Topanga Banjo•Fiddle Contest five times.
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Mercury Blues
Quarter Of A Man
Don’t Look Back
GE Smith & David Lindley live play it all night long”
Soul Of A Man
Talk to the Lawyer
Ain’t No Way
David Lindley Ukes! at the 2012 Reno Ukulele Festival