There are guitarists who play the blues, and then then there are players like Larry Smith—artists for whom the blues is not a genre but a native language. His playing doesn’t revisit tradition so much as extend it, pushing its edges with fire, elegance, and a restless sense of invention. From the first note, there is urgency and intent: this is music that moves forward.
A British-American guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, Larry Smith emerged from the late-1960s London music surge, when electric blues and rock reshaped modern popular music. Hearing Jimi Hendrix on pirate radio became a defining moment, opening a path shaped by both the foundational voices of American blues—Robert Johnson, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Bo Diddley—and the British blues-rock explosion of The Rolling Stones, John Mayall, and The Yardbirds.
Across a career exceeding 3,500 live performances in the United Kingdom and the United States, he has built a reputation for uncompromising live energy and technical precision. His sound draws from the expressive vocabulary of Jimi Hendrix, Rory Gallagher, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Ritchie Blackmore, while remaining distinctly his own—immediate, fluid, and performance-driven. His career has also placed him alongside musicians associated with landmark acts including AC/DC, Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, Rainbow, Dio, The Who, and Wings.
Based in Spain, Larry Smith continues to perform and record with his trio Larry Smith and Unfinished Business, while also working as a composer, writer, producer, engineer, and multi-instrumentalist.
His work treats the blues as a living language, constantly in motion. Each performance becomes a direct expression of that evolution—instinctive, immediate, and alive.
