Austin, TX · blues rock · soul

Gary Clark Jr.

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Fuzz-drenched Texas blues that keeps sliding into soul and hip-hop without ever losing the guitar — Austin's modern guitar hero at full sprawl.

Gary Clark Jr. grew up in Austin, Texas, where he began playing clubs as a teenager and was mentored within the city's blues community, including by promoter Clifford Antone. He got his first guitar, an Ibanez RX20, as a Christmas present at thirteen, and taught himself to play by studying instructional books from his middle school library and listening to Jimmy Reed and Stevie Ray Vaughan alongside Nirvana and Green Day.

His playing is rooted in electric blues, but his records range across blues rock, contemporary R&B, hard rock and soul, sliding into fuzzed-out guitar rock, falsetto vocals, reggae inflections and hip-hop-influenced rhythm without settling into any single genre for long.

He reached a wider audience after appearances at the Crossroads Guitar Festival, and Rolling Stone named him its "Best Young Gun" in 2011, the same year he signed with Warner Bros. Records and released The Bright Lights EP. His major label debut, Blak and Blu, followed in 2012, reaching number six on the Billboard 200 and topping the blues albums chart.

Since then he has recorded and performed alongside a range of established rock and blues musicians, co-writing with Alicia Keys, appearing on Foo Fighters' Sonic Highways, playing the guitar solo on Childish Gambino's "The Night Me and Your Mama Met" and guesting on Tech N9ne's "No Gun Control." His cover of the Beatles' "Come Together" became his first single to chart.

"Bright Lights" and "This Land" are among his best-known songs, the latter addressing racism he encountered in Texas and earning him Grammys for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance in 2020; "Please Come Home" won Best Traditional R&B Performance in 2014. His most recent album, JPEG Raw, appeared in 2024, and live his sets lean harder on extended guitar work than the studio versions suggest.

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blues rocksoul