* En anglais uniquement
One of the unsung heroes of the country-rock movement, steel guitarist and songwriter
Sneaky Pete Kleinow was born August 20, 1934, in South Bend, IN. Influenced by the music of
Jerry Byrd, he took up the steel guitar at the age of 17 and, after graduating high school, spent over a decade as a road maintenance worker for the Michigan State Highway Department. In 1963,
Kleinow relocated to Los Angeles, where he became a regular performer on the city's club circuit; he also found work composing jingles and even wrote the theme music for the children's series Gumby. In addition, he began working in Hollywood developing special effects for films.
In 1965,
Kleinow played on his first record, backing
the Ventures on their "Blue Star." While performing in an area club, he met
Gram Parsons and
Chris Hillman, who approached
Kleinow about joining the band they were organizing apart from their current venture, the folk-rock pioneers
the Byrds.
Kleinow agreed, and after a brief tenure as a
Byrds sideman he joined
Parsons and
Hillman in
the Flying Burrito Brothers; the band's 1969 debut,
The Gilded Palace of Sin, established the very blueprint for the country-rock genre.
Kleinow remained with
the Burritos through April 1971, appearing on the 1970 LP
Burrito Deluxe and its eponymously titled follow-up. At the same time, he became a sought-after session musician who played on records by
Joe Cocker,
Delaney & Bonnie, and
Little Feat. After departing
the Burritos, he focused all of his energies on session work, appearing with
John Lennon,
Frank Zappa,
Stevie Wonder,
Jackson Browne,
Linda Ronstadt, and
the Steve Miller Band. In 1974,
Kleinow briefly joined the band Cold Steel; the following year, he signed on with a reformed
Flying Burrito Brothers for the album Flying Again.
After two more
Burritos LPs -- 1976's Airborne and 1978's
Live in Tokyo --
Kleinow cut his first solo record, Sneaky Pete, in 1978. Following one final
Burritos album, 1981's Hearts on the Line, he gradually withdrew from the music industry to focus on creating special effects; the films he worked on included The Empire Strikes Back, The Right Stuff, Gremlins, and both Terminator features. Nevertheless, he occasionally returned to music, performing with diverse artists like
Leonard Cohen,
Medicine, and
the Golden Palominos. In 1994, he released the solo effort The Legend and the Legacy and led a new
Burritos lineup on a tour of Europe. ~ Jason Ankeny