Henry Vestine

Henry Charles Vestine (December 25, 1944 – October 20, 1997), a.k.a. "The Sunflower", was an American guitarist primarily known as a member of the blues rock band Canned Heat. He was with the group from its start in 1965 to July 1969. In later years, he played in local bands but occasionally returned to Canned Heat for a few tours and recordings.

In 2003, Vestine was ranked 77th in Rolling Stone magazine list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

Born in Takoma Park, Maryland, Vestine was the only son of Harry and Lois Vestine. His father was a noted geophysicist and meteorologist. The Vestine Crater on the Moon had been named posthumously after his father who discovered it. Henry Vestine married Lisa Lack, with whom he moved to Anderson, South Carolina. In 1980, they had a son, Jesse. In 1983, they separated and Vestine moved to Oregon.

Vestine's love of music and the blues in particular was fostered at an early age when he accompanied his father on canvasses of black neighborhoods for old recordings. Like his father, Vestine became an avid collector, eventually owning tens of thousands of recordings of blues, hillbilly, country, and Cajun music. At Vestine's urging, his father also used to take him to blues shows at which he and Henry were often the only white people present. Later Vestine was instrumental in the "rediscovery" of Skip James and other Delta musicians.

In the mid-1950s, Vestine and his childhood friend from Takoma Park, John Fahey, began to learn how to play guitar and sang a mixed bag of pop, hillbilly, and country music, particularly Hank Williams. Soon after the family moved to California, Vestine joined his first junior high band Hial King and the Newports. On his first acid trip with a close musician friend, he went to an East LA tattoo parlor and got the first of what was to be numerous tattoos: the words "Living The Blues". Later, in 1969, that became the title of a double album by Canned Heat. By the time he was seventeen he was a regular on the Los Angeles club circuit. He became a familiar sight at many black clubs, where he often brought musician friends to turn them on to the blues. Vestine became friends with Cajun guitarist Jerry McGhee. It was from him that Vestine learned and adopted the flat pick and three-finger style. He was an early fan of Roy Buchanan and his favorite guitar players included T-Bone Walker, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Sonny Sharrock, Freddie King, and Albert Collins. In Canned Heat he was able to play and record with John Lee Hooker whom he had admired since the late 1950s.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.