1. Leonard Harold Breau was an American-Canadian guitarist.
23 Facts About Lenny Breau
1. 2.
Lenny Breau blended many styles of music, including jazz, country, classical, and flamenco.
3.
Lenny Breau was born August 5,1941, in Auburn, Maine, USA and moved with his family to Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada in 1948.
4.
Lenny Breau made his first professional recordings in Westbrook, Maine at Event Records with Al Hawkes at the age of 15 while working as a studio musician.
5.
The Lenny Breau family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1957 and their new band performed around the city and province as the CKY Caravan.
6.
Around 1959 Lenny Breau left his parents' country band after his father slapped him in the face for incorporating jazz improvisation into his playing with the group.
7.
Lenny Breau sought out local jazz musicians, performing at Winnipeg venues Rando Manor and the Stage Door.
8.
Lenny Breau met pianist Bob Erlendson, who began teaching him more of the foundations of jazz.
9.
In 1961, Lenny Breau had his first professionally recorded jazz session at the age of twenty at Hallmark Studios in Toronto, where he was accompanied by future members of The Band bassist Rick Danko and drummer Levon Helm.
10.
In 1962, Lenny Breau briefly performed in the Toronto-based jazz group Three with singer and actor Don Francks, and Eon Henstridge on acoustic bass.
11.
In 1963 and 1964, Lenny Breau appeared at David Ingram's Fourth Dimension at 2000 Pembina Highway in Fort Garry, a suburb of Winnipeg.
12.
In 1967, recordings of Breau's playing from The Lenny Breau Show found their way to Chet Atkins.
13.
Lenny Breau did not record again for nearly 10 years, though he continued to do session work in Winnipeg.
14.
Lenny Breau left Winnipeg in 1976 and spent the last few years of his life in the United States, living in Maine, Nashville, Stockton, California, and New York City, eventually settling in Los Angeles in 1983.
15.
Lenny Breau had problems with drugs and alcohol beginning in the 1960s, which he managed to control during the last years of his life.
16.
Lenny Breau is interred in an unmarked grave at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
17.
The documentary The Genius of Lenny Breau was produced in 1999 by Breau's daughter, Emily Hughes, and directed by Hughes and John Martin.
18.
CBC Radio presented a documentary on Lenny Breau titled On the Trail of Lenny Breau.
19.
Lenny Breau was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1997.
20.
Lenny Breau's fully matured technique was a combination of Chet Atkins's and Merle Travis's fingerpicking and Sabicas-influenced flamenco, highlighted by right-hand independence and flurries of artificial harmonics.
21.
Lenny Breau often adapted Evans's compositions, such as "Funny Man", for guitar.
22.
Lenny Breau had two custom seven-string guitars made, one classical and one electric.
23.
Lenny Breau used fishing line of the correct gauge until the La Bella company began making a string for him.