Freddie Roulette

Illinois-born guitarist Freddie Roulette, who made his home in San Francisco, reshaped the slack key and steel guitar tradition of Hawaii into a vehicle for the blues. His cool tone and piercing high-note squeals supplied some of the most distinctive textures in the genre. Beyond his own solo recordings, he worked alongside bluesmen Earl Hooker and Charlie Musselwhite as well as guitarists Henry Kaiser and Steve Kinmock. Former Canned Heat guitarist Harvey Mandel produced Roulette’s first solo album, the 1978 release Sweet Funky Steel. His fascination with the steel guitar began at St. Mary’s elementary school in Evanston, Illinois, when he witnessed a girl playing the instrument; lessons during seventh and eighth grades quickly led to mastery. Musselwhite brought him to San Francisco in the mid-1970s, after which Roulette regarded the region as home. Most of his performances took place with lesser-known ensembles such as Robert Leroy Jones and the Crossroads, while he earned additional income managing a low-income apartment building in West Berkeley. Freddie Roulette died on December 24, 2022, at the age of 83.