David Lindley: The Maxi-Instrumentalist Who Redefined Rock with Cheap Sears Guitars
In short: Known as the Prince of Polyester, David Lindley was a musical chameleon who mastered everything from the oud to the lap steel. By shunning corporate trends for exotic world music and favoring amateur-grade instruments for their unique sonic character, he became an essential, genre-defying force in the California folk scene.
Born in 1944, David Lindley began his lifelong obsession with strings by picking up the violin at age three. His early environment was steeped in global sounds, thanks to his father’s extensive collection of 78 rpm records featuring Korean folk, Indian sitar, and Spanish classical guitar. This eclectic foundation propelled him to win the Topanga Banjo•Fiddle Contest five times before he reached adulthood. By the 1960s, he was a fixture at the Ash Grove club in Los Angeles, where he traded techniques with peers like Ry Cooder and learned violin methods from local master Don Sugarcane Harris.
Lindley’s career was defined by a restless curiosity. As a founding member of the psychedelic band Kaleidoscope, he explored unconventional textures, eventually becoming a sought-after session musician for icons ranging from Dolly Parton to Bob Dylan. He was famously dubbed a maxi-instrumentalist for his command of a vast array of global string instruments, including the bağlama, charango, and cümbüş. His home was famously described as a tidal flood of these instruments, which he collected for decades without ever keeping a formal count.
Perhaps his most distinct signature was his embrace of inexpensive, amateur-grade guitars sold at Sears. Lindley discovered that these mass-produced tools offered unique, raw sounds when played with a slide, a technique that influenced artists like Ben Harper. Beyond his technical prowess, he was a memorable stage presence, often appearing in jarringly mismatched polyester outfits. Despite his massive influence as a sideman and his own band El Rayo-X, Lindley remained committed to less popular musical idioms, consistently turning away from mainstream corporate sounds to pursue the folk and world music traditions that first captivated him as a child.
Lindley’s later years were marked by continued collaboration, including a successful 2006 tour with Jackson Browne that resulted in an award-winning live album. He passed away in 2023 at age 78, following a long illness linked to complications from long COVID. His legacy remains that of a musician who prioritized the soul of an instrument over its prestige, proving that a cheap department-store guitar could carry as much weight as a masterwork.
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