Could this really happen? The most masterful and game-changing slide guitarist the world has ever seen faces a challenge when famed singer-songwriter John Hiatt asks him to go on the road for the celebration of the 30th anniversary of Hiatt’s Slow Turning?
“When we started talking about this reunion, I should have immediately started practicing in standard tuning right away,” says Landreth, who played electric, acoustic slide, 12-string, and steel on the 1988 album sessions. “Holding a flatpick after not doing that for so many years was a rude slap of reality. I’ve played standard guitar parts on albums and such, but it’s not the same as digging in full bore with a major artist. See, when we first got together with Hiatt in the summer of 1987, I was playing in both standard and open tunings. However, at some point down the road, I started shying away from standard. We got back together with John from ’99 through 2003 and made two more albums—The Tiki Bar Is Open and Beneath This Gruff Exterior—and that pushed me to play standard again, and I started feeling really good about it. But then I got away from it once again. So I guess John is responsible for keeping this going, but all these years later, the bottom line was I had to get my chops together!”
To rewind a bit, what made you decide to devote yourself to slide in the first place?
I started out playing standard guitar with a pick just like everybody and then I learned to fingerstyle from Chet Atkins. I came upon the slide a little later when I was a teenager. Until about 1995, I did both—especially with Hiatt. Half the songs were in standard tuning with light-gauge strings and