Happy birthday to the late great guitarist Henry Charles Vestine (December 25, 1944 – October 20, 1997) a.k.a. The Sunflower, an American guitar player known mainly as a member of the band Canned Heat. He was with the group from its start in 1966 to July 1969. In later years he played in local bands but occasionally returned to Canned Heat for a few tours and recordings. In 2003 Vestine was ranked 77th in Rolling Stone magazine list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.Born in Takoma Park, Maryland, Vestine was the only son of Harry and Lois Vestine. His father was a noted physicist specializing in gravity studies. The Vestine Crater on the Moon had been named posthumously after him. Henry Vestine married twice, first in 1965 and in the mid-1970s to Lisa Lack and with whom he moved to Anderson, South Carolina. In 1980 they had a son, Jesse. In 1983, after they separated, Vestine moved to Oregon. Vestines love of music and the blues in particular was fostered at an early age when he accompanied his father on canvasses of black neighborhoods for old recordings. Like his father, Henry became an avid collector, eventually coming to own tens of thousands of recordings of blues, hillbilly, country, and Cajun music. At Henry’s urging, his father also used to take him to blues shows at which he and Henry were often the only white people present. Later Henry was instrumental in the rediscovery of Skip James and other Delta musicians. In the mid-1950s, Henry and his childhood friend from Takoma Park, John Fahey began to learn how to play guitar and sang a mixed bag of pop, hillbilly, and country music, particularly Hank Williams. Soon after the family moved to California, Henry Vestine joined his first junior high band Hial King and the Newports. On his first acid trip with a close musician friend, he went to an East LA tattoo parlor and got the first of what was to be numerous tattoos: the words Living The Blues. Later, in 1969, that became the title of a double album by Canned Heat. By the time he was seventeen he was a regular on the Los Angeles club circuit. He became a familiar sight at many black clubs, where he often brought musician friends to turn them on to the blues. Henry became friends with Cajun guitarist Jerry McGhee. It was from him that Henry learned the flat pick and 3-fingerstyle that was to become so much a part of Henry’s own style. He was an early fan of Roy Buchanan and his favorite guitar players included T-Bone Walker, Johnny Guitar Watson, Sonny Sharrock, Freddie King, and Albert Collins. In Canned Heat he was able to play and record with John Lee Hooker whom he had admired since the late 1950s. Vestine had finished a European tour with Canned Heat when he died from heart and respiratory failure, in a Paris hotel on the morning of October 20, 1997, just as the band was to return to the United States. Henry Vestines ashes are interred at the Oak Hill Cemetery outside of Eugene, Oregon. A memorial fund has been set up in his name. The fund will be used for maintenance of his resting place at Oak Hill Cemetery and, when it is possible, for conveyance of some of his ashes to the Vestine Crater on the moon, as has been his wish.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 15:14:57 +0000
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