Guitar Shorty

Guitar Shorty combined athletic stunts—somersaults, backward flips, and headstands—with ferocious, slashing guitar lines whenever he performed. Following a stretch of limited activity, his later recordings on Black Top, Evidence, and Alligator captured that kinetic force with striking clarity.

David Kearney entered the world on September 8, 1939, in Houston, Texas, and took up the guitar while still young. Early models for his playing came from B.B. King, Guitar Slim, T-Bone Walker, and Earl Hooker. At seventeen he was already working regular jobs in Tampa, Florida. One evening he discovered that the “Guitar Shorty” listed on the club’s marquee referred to himself. His acrobatic stage style drew directly from the flamboyant Guitar Slim, whose exploits had become legendary. In 1957 Shorty recorded his first single, “You Don’t Treat Me Right,” for Chicago’s Cobra Records with Willie Dixon producing. Three strong 45s issued in 1959 on the small Los Angeles label Pull, among them “Hard Life,” completed his output for many years. During the 1960s he married Jimi Hendrix’s stepsister and settled in Seattle, where the future rock icon repeatedly caught Shorty’s performances. His path remained uneven; at one low point he entered Chuck Barris’s Gong Show and took top honors by performing “They Call Me Guitar Shorty” while balanced on his head.

Shorty had returned to Los Angeles when his profile rose again with the 1991 JSP album My Way or the Highway, supported by guitarist Otis Grand. Black Top then signed him, resulting in the 1993 release Topsy Turvy, followed by Get Wise to Yourself in 1995 and Roll Over, Baby in 1998. Evidence issued the aptly named I Go Wild in 2001, confirming that Shorty remained an energetic showman and commanding blues guitarist. Watch Your Back surfaced in spring 2004. In 2006 Shout! Factory assembled the single-disc retrospective The Best of Guitar Shorty, while Alligator Records brought out the new studio set We the People. Alligator followed with a second album, Bare Knuckle, in early 2010. Guitar Shorty died on April 20, 2022, in Los Angeles at the age of 87.