Guitar | 1938-1994

Eric Gale’s guitar was all economy: a clean, vocal tone, blues phrasing and a sense of space that suited the New York studio rhythm sections he worked in. Born in Brooklyn, he became one of the most recorded session guitarists of the 1970s, playing for the CTI label with Bob James, Stanley Turrentine and Grover Washington Jr., and in the group Stuff with Steve Gadd. As a leader he recorded Forecast (Kudu, 1973), Multiplication (Columbia, 1977) and Ginseng Woman (Columbia, 1977), mixing jazz-funk and soul-jazz grooves with a pop-aware ear. He also played on Paul Simon’s One-Trick Pony (1980) and Washington’s Come Morning (1981). He died in 1994, aged 55.