Career
Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Thomas first heard blues guitar from his uncle Jesse Thomas, but Lafayette Thomas did not play professionally until 1947, in San Francisco, California.
"Lafayette" Thomas was the famous guitarist of Jimmy McCracklin's Blues Blasters, which he joined in 1948 and recorded with right through the 1950s. He was influenced by Lightnin' Hopkins and T-Bone Walker and joined Bob Geddins and the Cavaliers in 1949. The bulk of his recordings were with Jimmy McCracklin in the 1950s, and for Modern in 1952-53. He soloed on his own "Standing in the Back Door Crying", recorded at a 1954 McCracklin session with Modern Records.
In 1958 he moved to New York, working with Sam Price and playing on Bluesville album dates by Memphis Slim and Little Brother Montgomery, but soon went back west, though he let his music lapse.
Late in 1968, he recorded his first sides for the World Pacific record label on Oakland Blues, a compilation album of artists from that city. He remained semi active in the early 1970s working with Sugar Pie DeSanto.
Thomas died from a heart attack, in Brisbane, California, at the age of 48. In his 1977 obituary Tom Mazzolini, producer of the San Francisco Blues Festival wrote: "Unquestionably the finest guitarist to emerge from the San Francisco-Oakland blues scene, there is hardly a guitarist around here today who doesn't owe a little something to Lafayette Thomas . . ."
Read more about this topic: Lafayette Thomas
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“I seemed intent on making it as difficult for myself as possible to pursue my “male” career goal. I not only procrastinated endlessly, submitting my medical school application at the very last minute, but continued to crave a conventional female role even as I moved ahead with my “male” pursuits.”
—Margaret S. Mahler (1897–1985)
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)