Snowy White

British-born blues-rock guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Snowy White emerged in the 1970s as one of its more understated yet immediately distinctive players. Working both as a session musician and a solo performer, he has always cultivated a low profile while remaining equally comfortable across blues, pop and arena-rock settings thanks to his disciplined, melodic approach and the fluid, unhurried phrasing he draws from his signature vintage Les Paul gold top. Beyond a steady stream of independent solo releases and the work he has led with the White Flames and Blues Agency, he served as backing guitarist for Pink Floyd on the Animals and The Wall tours, acted as lead guitarist in Roger Waters’ touring band, spent 1980-1982 as a member of Thin Lizzy, and collaborated with longtime friend Peter Green as well as Rick Wright, Mick Taylor and Phil Lynott. His first album, White Flames, appeared in 1983 and yielded his sole chart success when “Bird of Paradise” climbed to number six in the U.K.; more than two dozen further albums have followed, among them the 1996 release No Faith Required, 2009’s In Our Time of Living and the understated 2016 masterwork Released.

White’s first exposure to music came at age eleven through urban-blues artists such as B.B. King, Otis Rush and Buddy Guy, prompting him to develop his own clean, hard-edged brand of British blues. After relocating to London in the early 1970s he spent the decade refining that sound alongside Pink Floyd, Peter Green and Thin Lizzy. In 1979 the latter group invited him to become a permanent member; he accepted, touring extensively and contributing to both Chinatown and The Renegade before departing in 1982 in search of fresh musical avenues. Recruiting drummer Richard Bailey, bassist Kuma Harada and keyboardist Godfrey Wang, he cut his solo debut White Flames, whose single “Bird of Paradise” became an international success, reaching number three on the U.K. charts.

Unwilling to be defined by a solitary hit, White shifted emphasis toward extended guitar work and assembled a touring blues ensemble in 1986 that included Harada, drummer Jeff Allen and vocalist/guitarist Graham Bell. The unit spent three years on the road, issuing Change My Life and Open for Business. In 1990 his former colleague Roger Waters invited him to join the landmark Berlin staging of The Wall; White delivered a notable solo on “Comfortably Numb” from atop an 80-foot wall in a concert that also featured Van Morrison and Bryan Adams. Waters again enlisted him the following year for the Guitar Legends event in Seville.

White then chose to return to the mainstream with 1993’s Highway to the Sun, his second solo album, which boasted guest appearances from David Gilmour, Chris Rea and Gary Moore. Goldtop followed as a retrospective spanning his work from the early 1970s through the 1990s. The 1998 album Little Wing was recorded with drummer Juan van Emmerloot and bassist Walter Latapeirissa, who became the core of a reconstituted White Flames; Melting appeared a year later.

Between 1999 and 2011 the prolific guitarist issued five further White Flames albums—Keep Out: We Are Toxic, Restless, The Way It Is, Live Flames and Realistic—alongside two blues-focused projects under the Snowy White Blues Project banner, In Our Time of Living and In Our Time… Live. Steady live commitments kept him busy both as a headliner and as a member of Roger Waters’ road band until he resurfaced in October 2016 with the largely self-performed studio album Released, widely regarded by critics as his strongest work. His official website also confirmed the imminent arrival of Reunited, another White Flames collection slated for October 2017, which was succeeded two years later by the band’s The Situation.