Talking with Guitarist Songwriter Will McFarlane – Part 1
It’s hard to imagine how many 12 year old young men watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1963 and were inspired to pick up the guitar saying, “I want to do that”. Many, I’m sure. Voice lessons at six years old and piano a year later, young Will was clearly better primed than most.
Motown’s R&B captured Will’s imagination in High School while growing up on Long Island, which helped him develop as a fine rhythm guitarist.
Bonnie Raitt enlisted the 23 year old college escapee McFarlane as a member of her band one night when she heard him play at a Cambridge, MA night club. He toured with her band from 1974 – 1980 before leaving the road to move into the studio.
While with The Bonnie Raitt band, Will shared stages with living blues and folk legends. That’ll do wonders for your playing but more importantly, Will learned to listen for what guitar licks to leave out to best play up the band.
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Talking with Guitarist Songwriter Will McFarlane – Part 2
In 1980 Will McFarlane joined the famed “Swampers”; He moved to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to play and learn from Jimmy Johnson and the boys. Bobby Blue Bland, Little Milton, Etta James and Johnnie Taylor are a few that get off hand mention as clients of Muscle Shoals Sound.
Since 2001, Will McFarlane, his Wife Janet, their three children, and five grand kids all live in North Carolina’s Triangle Region. The Will McFarlane Band plays regionally but Will continues his studio work in Nashville and Muscle Shoal as well as live gigs both nationally and abroad.
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Stand the Test – Will McFarlane (official music video)
The song “Stand the Test” was written by Will during a time when his three children were about to leave home, and – as all parents do – he was taking
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Blues Counsel w/ Phil Keaggy – River is Rising – Grace Chapel
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Blues Counsel w/ Phil Keaggy – River is Rising – Grace Chapel
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Will McFarlane and Kelvin Holly “White Room”
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Will and Kelvin killing it in this Cream cover. FloBama Bar in Florence, Alabama. June 30, 2020
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Will McFarlane interview
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Interview of Will McFarlane for the Roots of American Music Trail
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Wondersoul feat Toni Green & Will McFarlane At Last + I heard it through the grapevine
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Wondersoul feat Toni Green & Will McFarlane At Last + I heard it through the grapevine
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Will and Janet McFarlane at WC Handy Music Festival 2017
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Alabama Music Office.com goes to Swampers in Florence, Alabama to attend a performance by Will and Janet McFarlane at WC Handy Music Festival 2017.<br read more
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Will McFarlane – Amazing Grace ·
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Will McFarlane – Amazing Grace
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Will McFarlane | Truetone Lounge
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Will McFarlane is one of the creators and torch bearers of the Muscle Shoals sound. He was recognized for this by his induction into the Musicians Hal read more
Stand the Test – Will McFarlane (official music video)
The song “Stand the Test” was written by Will during a time when his three children were about to leave home, and – as all parents do – he was taking stock in what he finds important. Rob, Will’s youngest son, is the young man in the video.
Blues Counsel w/ Phil Keaggy – River is Rising – Grace Chapel
Blues Counsel w/ Phil Keaggy – River is Rising – Grace Chapel
Will McFarlane and Kelvin Holly “White Room”
Will and Kelvin killing it in this Cream cover. FloBama Bar in Florence, Alabama. June 30, 2020
Will McFarlane interview
Interview of Will McFarlane for the Roots of American Music Trail
Wondersoul feat Toni Green & Will McFarlane At Last + I heard it through the grapevine
Wondersoul feat Toni Green & Will McFarlane At Last + I heard it through the grapevine
Will and Janet McFarlane at WC Handy Music Festival 2017
Alabama Music Office.com goes to Swampers in Florence, Alabama to attend a performance by Will and Janet McFarlane at WC Handy Music Festival 2017.
Will McFarlane spent six years playing guitar with Bonnie Raitt, from 1974 to 1980. Born on a Navy base in California, McFarlane started voice lessons at age 6, adding piano a year later. Seeing the Beatles play the Ed Sullivan Show when he was 12 inspired McFarlane to take up guitar. He developed a taste for R&B in high school, focusing on Motown material while developing as a rhythm guitarist.
McFarlane attended college in Denver, but soon dropped out and had been playing gigs in bars and clubs across the country when Raitt found him in a club in Cambridge, Mass.
McFarlane learned how to listen as well as play while in Raitt’s band. His musical education was a versatile one, encompassing straight blues, country blues, folk, country, rock ‘n’ roll, as well as singer-songwriter material. Raitt was sharing stages with living blues legends, and McFarlane soaked up as much as he could from them before and after the gigs.
McFarlane left Raitt to move to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, playing on records for Bobby Blue Bland, Little Milton, Etta James and Johnnie Taylor as part of the famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.
He parted company amicably from Raitt in 1980, because he and his wife, Janet, wanted a change of lifestyle and didn’t want to raise two kids in L.A.
Soon after relocating to Muscle Shoals, he had a spiritual awakening. His younger brother was murdered while McFarlane was still with Raitt, and he says he reeled for three years afterwards.
He became a Christian, but continued to make his living playing secular music at Muscle Shoals Sound, as well as traveling in ministry. During this time his floundering marriage was restored, and he and Janet, now married 35 years, also travel together.
McFarlane has continued to work in secular and gospel music, both traditional and contemporary styles. He has moved back to Muscle Shoals, and plays there, as well as in Nashville, and other places around the country and world, doing sessions and live performances. He was just recently inducted into the Musician’s Hall of Fame in Nashville as a friend of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (The Swampers).
video by Jerry W. Henry
Will McFarlane – Amazing Grace ·
Will McFarlane – Amazing Grace
Will McFarlane | Truetone Lounge
Will McFarlane is one of the creators and torch bearers of the Muscle Shoals sound. He was recognized for this by his induction into the Musicians Hall of Fame as one of the Swampers in 2008. In our Truetone Lounge interview, we cover the impact his family had on his musicianship, his rise to fame as a sideman with Bonnie Raitt in the ’70s, his time spent in L.A. doing session work, and his move to Muscle Shoals in 1980. McFarlane continues to perform and record in Northern Alabama and is the defacto musical ambassador for Muscle Shoals.
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Jazz and blues fests are everywhere now, and Americana is going strong on college radio. What I'm hearing is an appreciation of real music.
Bonnie Raitt
I speak my mind and come from a place of conscience, as well as have fun as a musician.
Bonnie Raitt
I don't know if I'm a heroine; I'm just somebody that can cheer the troops by singing to folks, and have receptions after the show, and tithe a dollar of every ticket sale for all kinds of different great charities and social action groups.
Bonnie Raitt
Quakers are known for wanting to give back. Ban the bomb and the civil rights movement and the native American struggle for justice - those things were very, very front-burner in my childhood, as were the ideas of working for peace and if you have more than you need, then you share it with people who don't.
Bonnie Raitt
The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources.
Bonnie Raitt
I think my fans will follow me into our combined old age. Real musicians and real fans stay together for a long, long time.
Bonnie Raitt
I grew up in Los Angeles in a Quaker family, and for me being Quaker was a political calling rather than a religious one.
Bonnie Raitt
I just play the music that I love with musicians that I respect, and fortunately, I'm in a position where people are willing to play with me, and perhaps I can do something to help them.
Bonnie Raitt
I never saw music in terms of men and women or black and white. There was just cool and uncool.
Bonnie Raitt
Solar power is the last energy resource that isn't owned yet - nobody taxes the sun yet.
Bonnie Raitt
Religion is for those who are scared of hell, and spirituality is for those who have been there.
Bonnie Raitt
Life gets mighty precious when there's less of it to waste.
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Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. 2, the anticipated new John Prine tribute record from Oh Boy Records, is out today. Stream/purchase HERE.
Created as a celebration of Prine’s life and career, the album features new renditions of some of Prine’s most beloved songs performed by Brandi Carlile (“I Remember Everything”), Tyler Childers (“Yes I Guess They Oughta Name A Drink After You”), Iris DeMent (“One Red Rose”), Emmylou Harris (“Hello In There”), Jason Isbell (“Souvenirs”), Valerie June (“Summer’s End”), Margo Price (“Sweet Revenge”), Bonnie Raitt (“Angel From Montgomery”), Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats (“Pretty Good”), Amanda Shires (“Saddle in the Rain”), Sturgill Simpson(“Paradise”) and John Paul White (“Sam Stone”). Proceeds from the album will benefit twelve different non-profit organizations, one selected by each of the featured artists.
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Bonnie Raitt - Write Me a Few of Your Lines/Kokomo Blues
60 years anniversary celebration of Arhoolie
December 10, 2020
Arhoolie Foundation celebrates it's 60th anniversary (1960-2020) with an online broadcast.
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Bonnie Raitt - Shadow of Doubt
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
October 3, 2020
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass celebrates it's 20th anniversary with an online broadcast titled “Let The Music Play On”.
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Bonnie Raitt & Boz Scaggs - You Don't Know Like I Know
Farm Aid 2020 On the Road
Sam & Dave classic written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter.
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Sheryl Crow & Bonnie Raitt - Everything Is Broken
[Eric Clapton’s Crossroads 2019]
Eric Clapton, one of the world’s pre-eminent blues/rock guitarists, once again summoned an all-star team of six-string heroes for his fifth Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2019. Held at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, the two-day concert event raised funds for the Crossroads Centre in Antigua, the chemical dependency treatment and education facility that Clapton founded in 1998.
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'A Tribute To Mose Allison'
Celebrates The Music Of An Exciting Jazz Master
Raitt contributed to a new album, If You're Going To The City: A Tribute To Mose Allison, which celebrates the late singer and pianist, who famously blended the rough-edged blues of the Mississippi Delta with the 1950s jazz of New York City.
NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks to Bonnie Raitt about her friendship with the Mose Allison. They're also joined by Amy Allison — his daughter, who executive produced the album — about selecting an unexpected list of artists to contribute songs to the album.
Recorded on tour June 3, 2017 - Centennial Hall, London - Ontario Canada