Warren Haynes has spent more than four decades developing one of the most distinctive voices in blues-rock guitar. But before he became a fixture of the Allman Brothers Band, Gov’t Mule and the wider jam-band circuit, a handful of guitarists showed him just how far the instrument could go.
The 66-year-old guitarist recently revisited those early influences on the popular YouTube channel Track Star, where he was handed a pair of headphones on the streets of New York and asked to identify the songs being played for him. The challenge was easy enough for a musician with Haynes’ encyclopedic knowledge of guitar history, but the exercise prompted him to reflect on the players who first made him want to pick up the instrument.
“I first discovered Hendrix due to my oldest brother, who had Smash Hits,” he says of the first guitarist to turn him on to the sound of soul and heavy blues-rock. He picked out “Fire” in no time.
“Then I started hearing Cream and Johnny Winter, and it moved me and made me think about playing guitar.”
Hendrix was Haynes’ gateway to a new world of electric guitar music. “It was so different at that time than anything anybody’d ever heard,” he says, stressing that he isn’t exaggerating.
“I had two older brothers that had really great taste in music,” he adds. “So they played a lot of great stuff around the house.”
Still, it’s Eric Clapton, the second player in Haynes’ trifecta of heroes, who gets the most praise. He identifies “Lay Down Sally” within seconds.
“Clapton was probably my first guitar hero. He was millions of people’s first guitar hero,” he laughs. “He took the blues to another level. He just filtered it through his brain, his personality, and combined it with all the other influences that he grew up with and created this style of playing that no one had done before.”
As Haynes quips later in the video, “Freddie King taught him how to make love to a guitar.”
Haynes also recognizes that Clapton did little to hide his influences, from the Three Kings — Freddie, B.B. and Albert — to Buddy Guy. Clapton absorbed what those players were doing and helped introduce their music to British audiences, bringing the blues to a new generation while putting his own stamp on it.
By his own admission, Clapton benefited from growing up in a musically rich household. His father played everything from the Sensational Nightingales to the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi and Bobby “Blue” Bland. That education helped position Clapton to bring the blues to contemporary audiences, where he remained faithful to its roots while injecting it with his own psychedelic personality. His Cream legacy attests to that, although the band’s surprising pop influence is often overlooked.
It’s also worth noting that Haynes’ beloved 12-string Les Paul is a direct nod to Slowhand.
Winter’s music doesn’t make an appearance in the Track Star video, but Haynes’ reaction to his passing in 2014 says all that’s needed about the impact the “Rock Me Baby” hitmaker had on his life.
“He was an influence on every guitar player of my generation,” Haynes wrote in a statement published by JamBase. “If you were a guitarist from a younger generation, you were influenced by Johnny Winter whether you knew it or not.
“He was one of the few guitarists who created a style of playing that everyone who came later recognizes,” he added. “I treasured the few times we’ve played together over the years, and I was proud to call him my friend.”
Through his work with the Allman Brothers Band and his own group, Gov’t Mule — a band that will never say no to an extended guitar solo — Haynes has carved out his own path on the instrument. His standing in the scene was typified last year when, after years of talks, he finally worked with Gibson on a new signature guitar.
As for the magic of the Allman Brothers Band, Haynes says an imperfect secret sauce was key to their legacy.
Yet while Haynes believes Clapton brought the blues to contemporary audiences, the guitarist offered a somewhat cynical assessment of who has carried that tradition forward, saying that only one player has done likewise since.
