Billy Strange

Billy StrangeRykodisc Catalog Artist

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Billy Strange

It's hard to believe that Billy Strange was born and raised in Long Beach, California.There's more than a little bit of "Deliverance" in the pick 'n' slide of every flowing phrase.Clearly, the imprinting he received from starting to play on his father's local, country-oriented, radio show at the age of seven proves the wisdom of John Lee Hooker's proclamation, "it's in him and it's got to come out."But just what it is that's in him is one exquisitely strange step removed from any and all influences reverberating in his hep cat lower brain stem.Besides working through the ranks to become one of the top recording musicians in Hollywood (at least that's what the liners for the original release proclaim), he arranged for the likes of Dean Martin and Nancy Sinatra.Somewhere during all this big city pickin', his cowboy boots went a walkin' uptown to popdom where he turned down the tremolo in favor of a slick, bright sound too polite for the street and very light on the grease.The sound he invented was dubbed lounge-a-billy; music for cats so cool they took jobs, made car payments, and favored martinis over Maker's Mark whiskey.