Lee Ritenour

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Lee Mack "Captain Fingers" Ritenour (born January 11 1952) is an internationally acclaimed guitarist, recording artist, composer and producer. He began his career at 16 as a session player. He has appeared on over 3000 sessions & recorded 40 solo and collaboration albums. He had a world wide hit with "Is It You" in 1981.

Ritenour holds the distinction of having two of the promotional videos for his songs ("Is It You," and "Mr. Briefcase") being played during MTV's first hour. He is engaged to Japanese singer-songwriter Anri. His music is heavily influenced by Wes Montgomery. Not only has he paid frequent tributes to his hero, his son, born in 1993, is named Wesley.

Biography

Ritenour was born January 11 1952 in Los Angeles, California. He played his first session when he was 16 with the Mamas and the Papas. Nicknamed "Captain Fingers", he was a sought-after session guitarist by the mid-1970s and won Guitar Player Magazines Best Studio Guitarist twice in the 70's. He is noted for playing his red Gibson ES-335 and his Gibson L5 guitars. One of his most notable influences is the pioneering jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery. In 1976, he released his first solo album, First Course. This was followed up by his fusion work Captain Fingers in 1976. Since First Course he has released over 30 albums — the 30th being Rit's House in 2002. One of his most notable works is his pop album (featuring vocalist Eric Tagg) 1981 Rit, which contained chart hits "Is It You," and "Mr. Briefcase." In the 90s, he was one of the founding members of group Fourplay. He was nominated for 17 Grammy's , won one, plus many other Number #1 guitar polls throughout the world.

Throughout his career, Ritenour has experimented with different styles of music. He has often incorporated elements of funk, pop, rock, blues and Brazilian music with jazz (to the dislike of some critics). In the early 1980s, Ritenour was given his own Ibanez signature model guitar, the LR-10. The LR-10 was produced from 1981 to 1987. It can be heard exclusively on his album Rit. Currently, Ritenour plays the Gibsons that he first played in the 1970s (the ES-335 and L5), and now also plays his signature Lee Ritenour Model archtop guitar made by Gibson.

Style

Ritenour has always experimented with different genres, and has always had a very strong commercial sense. His solo career began in 1975 with the recording of his album First Course. Released in 1976, the album gave a strong representation of the mid-1970s L.A. Jazz/Funk sound. Critics did, however, complain that his first album was "lightweight." So Lee countered this with his strongly fusion-based follow up, Captain Fingers. This was followed by two more fusion efforts—The Captain's Journey (1978) and Feel The Night (1979). On these albums, Ritenour primarily used something of a rich, yet rock-oriented distorted guitar sound, coming from his Gibson ES-335 guitar. In other instances on these albums, clean sounds were heard coming from his Gibson L5 and classical acoustic guitars (he played his classical acoustic guitars almost exclusively on his album Rio in 1979). In the 1970s, Ritenour would often use effects like wah-wah, phasers, chorus, and flangers on his electric instruments. Also, during the late 1970s, Ritenour can be heard using the 360 Systems guitar synthesizer (he is pictured sitting in front of it on the back cover of his Captain Fingers album). He can be heard using the synthesizer on the track Captain Fingers (from the album with the same title), and can also be heard playing solo with the synthesizer on the song "What Do You Want?" from "The Captain's Journey."

In 1979, Ritenour played on Pink Floyd's The Wall, contributing rhythm guitar to "One of My Turns" and acoustic guitar to "Comfortably Numb".

As the 1980s began, Ritenour began to add stronger elements of pop to his music, beginning with Rit in 1981. For this, he kept with his distorted sound, now using his Ibanez LR-10 signature model guitar. He continued with the pop-oriented music for two albums after Rit (Rit/2 in 1982 and Banded Together in 1984), while releasing a slick, yet more fusion-styled, Direct-Disk instrumental album in 1983 called On The Line. He also provided rhythm guitar on Tom Browne's hit, Funkin' for Jamaica.

In 1985, he recorded his first album for GRP with Dave Grusin, entitled Harlequin. It featured Lee primarily on his classical acoustic guitar and also featured Brazilian singer/songwriter Ivan Lins. Up to this point, this album along with Rio arguably gave the strongest representation of Lee's Brazilian influences.

The following year, 1986, Ritenour released the album Earth Run, which featured him using the then-newly designed SynthAxe guitar. He used nine different guitars on the album, most notably the SynthAxe, his Valley Arts guitar, and his Gibson Chet Atkins acoustic. The album also featured long-time collaborator Phil Perry for the first time, on the track "If I'm Dreaming, Don't Wake Me" — a song also featuring David Foster and Maurice White.

Ritenour continued in a direction strongly featuring other artists in 1987, with Portrait. The album itself has something of a strong smooth-jazz sound, and Ritenour can be heard here playing with The Yellowjackets, Djavan, and much to the shock of some, Kenny G.

In 1988, his smooth jazz-influenced Brazilian music came to the forefront with Festival — another album strongly featuring his work on nylon-string acoustic guitars. The following album, Color Rit, continued with a similar mood. He did however, change direction completely again with his straight-ahead jazz album Stolen Moments. Sounding similar to Wes Montgomery, Ritenour played alongside long-time collaborator, saxophonist Ernie Watts, pianist Alan Broadbent, bassist John Patitucci (playing only acoustic) and drummer Harvey Mason. Continuing in a Wes Montgomery mood, Ritenour paid tribute to the man himself in 1992, with his album Wes Bound. The album featured a number of covers of Montgomery compositions, as well as some seemingly tributary pieces from Ritenour himself.

Also seen in this decade was a 1994 collaboration album with guitarist Larry Carlton called Larry & Lee.

Lee Ritenour formed Fourplay together with keyboard player, Bob James. Whilst playing primarily with smooth jazz group Fourplay for much of the 1990s, Lee left the group in 1998 and continued with his solo works. He was replaced in the group by Larry Carlton. 2002 saw the release of his album, Rit's House.

In February 2004, Ritenour completed a project looking back on his career involving musicians he has worked with throughout his career called Overtime. Overtime was recorded live in a studio in front of a small audience. It was released in early 2005, and is currently available as a singular audio CD, double-DVD set or singular HD DVD. Some of the musicians featured include Dave Grusin, Patrice Rushen, Harvey Mason, Alex Acuna, Chris Botti, Anthony Jackson, Melvin Lee Davis, and Ernie Watts, amongst many others.

His latest album, entitled Smoke n' Mirrors was released in late August 2006. His son Wesley is a drummer, and makes his debut appearance on the album at the age of 13.

Discography

Albums

|- align=center |align=left| First Course || 1976 || align=left| Epic || |- align=center || |align=left| Gentle Thoughts || 1977 || align=left| JVC || |- align=center || |align=left| Captain Fingers || 1977 || align=left| Epic || |- align=center || |align=left| Sugar Loaf Express (with Eric Gale) || 1977 || align=left| JVC|| |- align=center || |align=left| Friendship (Different to 1979 release) || 1978 || align=left| JVC || |- align=center || |align=left| The Captain's Journey || 1978 || align=left| Elektra || |- align=center || |align=left| Friendship (Currently reissued with The Captain’s Journey on Wounded Bird Records) || 1977 || align=left| JVC || |- align=center || |align=left| Rio || 1979 || align=left| GRP || |- align=center || |align=left| Feel the Night || 1979 || align=left| Elektra/Discovery || |- align=center || |align=left| Rit || 1981 || align=left| Elektra/Discovery || |- align=center || |align=left| Rit, Vol. 2 || 1982 || align=left| Musicraft || |- align=center || |align=left| On the Line (This version differs in some takes to the 1985 GRP Release, and is available reissued with Rio on Wounded Bird Records) || 1983 || align=left| Elektra/Musician || |- align=center || |align=left| Banded Together || 1984 || align=left| Elektra/Discovery || |- align=center || |align=left| Harlequin (w/Dave Grusin) || 1985|| align=left| GRP || |- align=center || |align=left| On the Line || 1985 || align=left| GRP || |- align=center || |align=left| Earth Run || 1986 || align=left| GRP || |- align=center || |align=left| Portrait || 1987 || align=left| GRP || |- align=center || |align=left| Festival || 1988 || align=left| GRP || |- align=center || |align=left| Color Rit || 1989 || align=left| GRP || |- align=center || |align=left| Stolen Moments || 1990 || align=left| GRP || |- align=center || |align=left| Joyride || 1991 || align=left| En Pointe || |- align=center || |align=left| Wes Bound || 1992 || align=left| GRP || |- align=center || |align=left| Lee Ritenour and His Gentle Thoughts (Reissue from 1977 release) || 1992 || align=left| JVC || |- align=center || |align=left| Larry & Lee (with Larry Carlton) || 1994 || align=left| GRP || |- align=center || |align=left| Alive in L.A. || 1997 || align=left| GRP || |- align=center || |align=left| This Is Love i.e. || 1998 || align=left| Music/Polygram || |- align=center || |align=left| Rit's House || 2002 || align=left| Verve || |- align=center || |align=left| Friendship/The Captain's Journey || 2005 || align=left| Wounded Bird || |- align=center || |align=left| Rio/On the Line || 2005 || align=left| Wounded Bird || |- align=center || |align=left| Overtime || 2005 || align=left| Peak || |- align=center || |align=left| World of Brazil || 2005 || align=left| GRP || |- align=center ''|| |align=left| Smoke n’ Mirrors || 2006 || align=left| Peak || |}

External links

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Last updated on Tuesday February 26, 2008 at 03:49:40 PST (GMT -0800)
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