Get well soon, Bobby...

I’m saddened to learn that Bobby Sutliff, best known as a founding member of Mississippi’s Windbreakers, was recently in a bad car wreck and suffered serious, potentially life threatening injuries.  I hope he makes it through this.  His guitar playing, which is something on the order of Richard Lloyd meets Bob Welch meets Jim McGuinn, is just the thing for those of us who worship the totemic power of guitars and spend much of our lives in search of the perfect solo played with perfect tone.  Sutliff is one of those guys who just seems to know intuitively how to get exquisite sound from his axe.  Lyrically, Sutliff rarely if ever veers from the boy-meets-girl-and-turmoil-ensues scenario, but that’s ok because it’s a scenario that never gets old for me, probably because it speaks so clearly to my lived experience.  And Sutliff is so good at transforming heartache and heartbreak into sublime, guitar-infused music.  …The Windbreakers (it's a terrible name for band, ain't it?) worked with Mitch Easter but failed to ever gain any sustained presence on the airwaves beyond the college campuses of the 80s and early 90s. Still, the band was every bit as talented as REM, the Feelies, the Bongos, Let's Active, and all that jangly stuff we love so well.  So much of chart success is a random crapshoot, being in the right place at the right time, and it somehow never happened for the Windbreakers.  Sutliff went on to make a handful of very good solo albums that all more or less sound like the Windbreakers, including a few post-millennial albums, each of which is worth having, especially if you’re a guitar junkie.  The man still has it, and I’m sending him my good healing vibes, hoping he makes a quick recovery and can continue to bless us with his considerable talents…