Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler lend Sonny Landreth hands he doesn't really need

July 31, 9:58 AMSF Music ExaminerDerk Richardson

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Sonny Landreth. Photo by Jack Spencer.

If From the Reach is the CD that finally catapults Louisiana guitarist Sonny Landreth out of cult status and garners him recognition as the guitar-playing equal of Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler, it will have something to do with the star power and six-string chemistry those iconic rockers lend to Landreth's ninth album.

Guitar heroes Robben Ford and Eric Johnson also add their pyrotechnics to the star-studded affair, and New Orleans legend Dr. John (piano and vocal), Jimmy Buffett (vocal) and country superstar Vince Gill (guitar and vocal) thicken the celebrity gloss.

More often than not, such all-star aggregations quickly grow cramped and cumbersome. But it says a lot about Landreth's awesome power as a picker, slide player, songwriter, singer and producer that his distinct musical personality — steeped in the swamps of Mississippi and Louisiana and forged from his study of early blues giants Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Skip James and Mississippi John Hurt, as well as his youthful fondness for Scotty Moore, Chet Atkins and the Ventures — remains the focus throughout the 11 intense tracks of From the Reach.

The exchanges with his high-profile guests have none of that phoned-in quality that too often stultifies such affairs, even though most of the encounters were indirect and overdubbed. Landreth did a sterling job writing songs to fit his invited partners, and he and engineer Tony Daigle masterfully integrated and mixed the studio-to-studio sessions.

As he will no doubt prove in his show at the Great American Music Hall on Friday, Aug. 1, Landreth doesn't need special guests to make his performances incendiary. Indeed, he's demonstrated how much others need him by insinuating his expressive guitar lines into recordings by Buffett, Knopfler, Dr. John, Irma Thomas, Beausoleil, Mindy Smith, John Hiatt, Joan Osborne Shelby Lynne and others. (To watch Landreth playing with Knopfler, click here.)

On From the Reach — which opens with rage against the political context of and response to the New Orleans levees breaking after hurricane Katrina, and closes with a wish for universal peace — this 57-year-old journeyman seizes all the just due he deserves.

Guitar aficionados who hold the likes of Clapton, Knopfler, Ry Cooder, Richard Thompson and David Lindley (or Joe Satriani and Steve Vai) in high esteem should take note of Landreth's searing blues-rock.

 Watch Sonny Landreth at the Crossroads Guitar Festival 2007: