My fellow journalist, music enthusiast and IUP graduate Alan J. Wallace submitted this essay for your reading pleasure. I hope you enjoy it and find it as informative as I do.

THE WORLD'S GREATEST UNKNOWN GUITARIST

I first saw the late Danny Gatton play one night in the late 1980s in Richmond, Va., in a room so small that he and his band didn't even use a PA - they just played through the amps. A couple of Deadhead buddies of mine who lived in that area and had seen him before took me to that show, and I'm glad they were there. Without them, I'd have had a much harder time picking my jaw up off the floor at the end of the show.

Prior to that night, I'd never seen any guitar player who could simultaneously play lead and rhythm parts. I'd never seen anyone play so many notes so quickly, yet was capable of conveying such tremendous feeling and expression on ballads. And while there are lots of guitar players who use beer bottles as slides, I'd never seen a guitar player use a full one, allowing the slide action to make the beer foam up and out of the bottle onto the fretboard until the bottle was empty, then grab a towel and wipe up the resulting mess - all without missing a note the entire time.

Gatton could do all of that - and more. And all of that barely begins to describe the level of genius at work when Danny Gatton played.

Indeed, words are inadequate for the task of conveying just how remarkable Gatton was. And while the body of his recorded work is fairly large and quite stunning, it's difficult to fully appreciate what he did just by listening. He made a couple of instructional videos, but I know of no available performance video, and that's a shame. (He did play on "Austin City Limits" in the early '90s, and now that some classic episodes of that PBS series are being released on DVD, I hope that Gatton appearance will be released someday.) For while he was not one to rely on showmanship gimmicks - the full-beer-bottle-slide thing was pretty much as far as he went in that regard - simultaneously seeing and hearing Gatton play reinforced, powerfully, just how rarefied a level of expertise he achieved. Simply put, it's difficult to get the full picture of what he was pulling off just from the sound; you often had to see it, too, to really believe it.

But that recorded legacy is what we're left with, so we should make the most of it. Sadly, shortly after he was dropped by Elektra after his second major-label release failed to sell in big numbers, and apparently in the grip of depression, Gatton took his own life at his Newburg, Md., home on Oct. 20, 1994.

Born in 1945, a lifelong resident of the D.C. area, he began playing when he was 9. He played in various groups in that region, spent some time in Nashville in the late 1960s and hit his stride in the '70s with such D.C.-area bands as Danny & the Fat Boys and Redneck Jazz Explosion, releasing albums on a label created by his parents and run by his mother, NRG Records. In 1978, he played on Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen's "Flying Dreams," which led to a year-and-a-half stint as sideman with country artist Roger Miller, beginning in 1980. During that period, he also hooked up with rockabilly singer Robert Gordon in D.C. - a pairing that would lead to one of his most legendary recordings.

His first solo album, "Unfinished Business," came out on NRG in 1987. That, and Guitar Player magazine naming Gatton "The World's Greatest Unknown Guitar Player" in 1989, led to the Elektra contract. His first Elektra release, "88 Elmira St." (1991), won critical acclaim and a Grammy nomination, but didn't sell well. Neither did his second Elektra release, "Cruisin' Deuces" (1993), though that record brought Gatton guest shots on TV with the bands on the David Letterman and Conan O'Brien shows and his only nationwide tour as a headliner. Prior to that, he had pretty much stayed fairly close to home, mainly playing the Richmond-D.C.-Baltimore circuit, with occasional ventures farther along the eastern seaboard or inland.

So that's the basic bio. What it doesn't tell you is how versatile Gatton was; how his playing displayed mastery of rockabilly, country, bluegrass, rock, jazz, blues, R&B ... you name it; how his performances so often showcased one of the better senses of musical humor I've ever encountered, such as the frequent appearance of the theme song to "The Simpsons" and "Linus and Lucy" in medleys; his penchant for tossing in brief quotes from other songs in the middle of whatever tune he ostensibly was playing at the time; and what a student of his craft he was - in his playing, you could hear the influence of such seminal guitarists as Les Paul, Scotty Moore and Charlie Christian.

These days, it's not easy to find Gatton's recordings in music stores, and some of the best are out of print. But there's still a good deal of his stuff available commercially at reasonable prices, through such sources as amazon.com, and it's well worth exploring. There are too many albums to address each one, but here are a few to consider as starting points:

* "In Concert 9/9/94" (Big Mo Records, 1996). Recorded live at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Va., just weeks before his death, this is Gatton in peak form, a complete, unedited, "unsweetened" set, just as it was performed, and in a stripped-down context. Accompanied only by upright bass player John Previti and drummer Timm Biery, Gatton plays a double-neck Fender Custom - a standard six-string guitar neck over a six-string bass neck that gives him an even more expansive range of musical options. And to give you an idea of how wide-ranging his repertoire was, check the set list. It opens with "Sunnymoon for Two" by jazz great Sonny Rollins and includes Chuck Mangione's "Land of Make Believe," Gatton's own "Blues Newburg" and "88 Elmira," and a 20-minute-or-so jam-heavy sequence, divided into four tracks that flow one into the next, that starts with "Apache," segues into quotes from a few surf tunes, stops for a while in the land of Duke Ellington's "Caravan," visits with "Linus and Lucy" and culminates in a blazing-fast medley that's kicked off by a version of "Orange Blossom Special." This is the definitive late-period Gatton performance document.

* "Robert Gordon with Danny Gatton - "Live / 'The Humbler'" (NRG, 1996). More than any other single recording, this is the one that cemented Gatton's reputation among fellow musicians. It's not sonically sophisticated because it's a mono recording, mastered on cassette, that was made surreptitiously by the sound crew at a club in Berkeley, Calif. The crew was inspired to take this unusual step because they were so blown away by what they heard from Gatton at the afternoon soundcheck; it's mono because there were problems with the sound system. In the audience was L.A. studio stalwart Amos Garrett, a fellow guitar player who is quoted in the liner notes as saying Gatton's playing that night "was literally a humbling performance." Garrett got his hands on a cassette copy, which quickly became known as "The Humbler Tape" and circulated widely among musicians. After Gatton's death, the original cassette was located (one of the sound crew guys had hung onto it) and the result was this official release. The material is principally rockabilly ("Ubangi Stomp," "Good Rockin?Äô Tonight," "Twenty Flight Rock," Gene Vincent's "Cruisin'," along with country ("There Stands the Glass") and an oddball cover (Springsteen's "Fire"), and Danny wasn't the bandleader, but this show is all about his playing. Unfortunately, it's out of print and has become a rarity; copies that surface online have been going for $60 or more lately - a roundabout sort of testament to just how remarkable this performance is, given its sonic and technical limitations. (One other note: the bass player on this show, Tony Garnier, went on to a long stint backing Bob Dylan.)

* "Danny Gatton's Redneck Jazz Explosion Recorded Live December 31, 1978" (NRG, 1995). An instrumental quartet often classified as country-jazz fusion (that's not a misprint or typo), Redneck Jazz Explosion featured Gatton and Nashville pedal steel master Buddy Emmons trading licks. This New Year's Eve show at D.C.'s Cellar Door is another that circulated for years in various bootleg forms before finally seeing official release. It's also notable for documenting Gatton's use of what he called his Magic Dingus Box, a pre-digital effects package for his guitar. The set list is typically eclectic, including Horace Silver's "Opus de Funk," Rimsky-Korsakov's "Song of India," Benny Golson's "Killer Joe," "Land of Make Believe" and "Tequila."

* "Unfinished Business" (NRG, 1987; has been reissued). A fine overview of Gatton in the studio, his first solo record provides a mix of covers: "Cherokee," "Melancholy Serenade" (the theme from the old Jackie Gleason TV show), Charlie Byrd's "Homage to Charlie Christian," "Georgia on My Mind" and Gatton originals ("Lappin' it Up," "Nit Pickin'," "Sky King"). The backing players vary somewhat from track to track and the album isn't really a cohesive whole, but it's a consistently fascinating ride that gives insight into Gatton's versatility and virtuosity.

* "88 Elmira St." and "Cruisin' Deuces" (Elektra, 1991 and 1993, respectively). Gatton's only major-label releases are both fine studio efforts. "Elmira" is mainly original material, but includes a stand-alone take of "The Simpsons" and a cover of Brian Wilson's "In My Room." "Deuces" includes a track called "Sun Medley" that combines "Mystery Train," "My Baby Left Me" and "That's Alright" with Delbert McClinton handling vocals, plus a number of originals. Both Elektra albums also feature a wide cast of backing players who toured with Gatton in the late '80s and early '90s, including Previti; the late Billy Windsor, a longtime Gatton partner on rhythm guitar; multi-instrumentalist Bill Holloman on trumpet, clarinet, sax, trombone, Hammond B-3, vibes, piano and synthesizers; and Shannon Ford on drums.

Of course, these albums just scratch the surface. Fire up your Web browser and find far more to explore from "The World's Greatest Unknown Guitarist."

ILLUSTRATION: This was the poster for Danny Gatton's second and final Pittsburgh appearance as a bandleader, on July 31, 1993, at Graffiti. His first was on May 28, 1991, also at Graffiti.