Clarence White

A seminal figure in California's country rock scene of the late '60s and early '70s, Clarence White was one of the most gifted guitarists of his generation and single-handedly pushed the Bakersfield sound into the psychedelic age. Cutting his teeth on Bill Monroe and Doc Watson, White grew up a tremendous flatpicker and started the Kentucky Colonels, a bluegrass outfit, with his brothers. After stints as a session guitarist in the '60s, he brought a unique telecaster sound--modified with his own invention that bent the B-string to suggest a pedal steel--to the previously folk-rock oriented Byrds. His highly expressive, trebly leads provided the perfect counterpart for Roger McGuinn's arpeggios on albums such as SWEETHEART OF THE RODEO and DR. BYRDS & MR. HYDE. Concurrently with the Byrds in 1968, he started a country rock band called Nashville West and later, in the early '70s, reformed the Kentucky Colonels. His solo career was still embryonic when White was killed by a drunk driver after a show in 1973.