May 1999

 60 Minutes With Jonny Lang
by Vic Garbarini

Jonny Lang is the best argument for the theory of reincarnation this side of Tibet.  It figures that the spirit of Robert Johnson or Otis Redding would come back as a blond, blue-eyed teenage kid from Fargo, North Dakota, doesn't it?  When Ralph Macchio played the part of a teenage blues prodigy in the 1986 film Crossroads, Lang was preparing to toddle off to kindergarten.  But when Lang released his first blues opus, Lie to Me, at age 16, it was obvious this kid was the real thing.
Along with the equally youthful Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Derek Trucks, Lang has reintroduced the blues to a new generation.  By the time he was making plans to attend his junior prom, he'd toured with Buddy Guy, been invited onstage to play "The Thrill Is Gone" with his hero, B.B. King (who's old enough to be his great grandfather) and moved to Minneapolis, where he jammed regularly with Prince's rhythm section.  His sophomore effort, Wander This World, reaffirms his love for the blues but also reaches out to encompass steamy Memphis soul and R&B with little help from legendary Stax guitarist Steve Cropper, Lang realizes that a sizzling solo means little without a well-written and soulful song.
 

Finally, Lang is the youngest guitarist we've ever asked to choose his favorite tunes for 60 Minutes.  He's also the only musician to choose songs from every decade of the rock era - from the Fifties through the Nineties.  Unpretentious and adventurous, Lang at 18 is already mature enough to see the history of rock, blues and R&B as one integrated whole - a wide-open field not limited by favorite decades or stylistic ghettos.

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