Steve Hunter

Born in Decatur, Illinois, in 1948, Steve "The Deacon" Hunter entered the professional music world in 1971 as a guitarist with Mitch Ryder's Detroit. His distinctive playing reimagined the Lou Reed staple "Rock & Roll" into a cult favorite, supplying the '60s blue-eyed soul singer with an enduring underground reputation that Ryder continued to tap decades after the band's self-titled Paramount album Detroit appeared. One of Hunter's earliest memories involved sitting on his father's lap as the elder Hunter operated the pedals of a pump organ belonging to the boy's grandparents, while the youngster played the keyboard and reproduced melodies he had already absorbed—well before he reached kindergarten. Even then he could detect when tempos lagged or singers strayed from pitch. Music surrounded him constantly; a large Zenith console radio/turntable held his attention for hours, its spinning record labels striking him as "sort of the first music video."

By age twelve he had encountered players who began defining his approach to the guitar. The Ventures and Chet Atkins exerted a powerful pull, joined by Duane Eddy, though these touchstones shifted once Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton emerged on the global scene. Hunter mastered several Ventures numbers and Duane Eddy's pieces, yet it was Chet Atkins's range and singular technique that left the strongest impression. "That became a very important thing to me. Also, I loved his touch on the guitar. The notes coming out of the guitar always sounded like velvet. I think he was the consummate musician." His first public performances came with the high-school ensemble the Weejuns, named after a style of loafer. Next came the rock-and-soul outfit the Light Brigade in Decatur, whose Hammond B-3 player, Ron Stockert, later joined the Grammy-winning band Rufus & Chaka Khan. The Light Brigade, one of Hunter's favorite early groups, logged numerous five-set nights that proved invaluable training. He had begun lap-steel lessons at eight and switched to "regular" guitar around twelve. Five years of lap-steel study followed, after which he acquired the balance of his guitar skills independently by listening to and absorbing blues recordings from B.B. King, Albert King, and Michael Bloomfield.

Friend and eventual Ted Nugent bassist John Sauter was already working with Mitch Ryder while Hunter toured with the Light Brigade. When Detroit needed a guitarist, Sauter urged Hunter to audition. Hunter drove seven hours from Decatur to Detroit, guitar in hand. The rehearsal took place inside a condemned downtown building on Cass Avenue, possibly the former offices of Creem magazine, whose publisher Barry Cramer had served as the band's first manager. A Marshall half-stack stood waiting—an instrument Hunter had never seen before. The group jammed on Cream material; Hunter secured the position and judged his new bandmates exceptional. Equally pivotal was his introduction to producer Bob Ezrin. The two clicked at once, Hunter admiring Ezrin's methods of assembling music. Detroit with Mitch Ryder maintained an active schedule that included the April 1, 1972, "Get Out the Vote" political concert shared with the Spencer Davis Group—an event later documented in activist John Sinclair's eight-page liner notes for the CD Get Out the Vote: Live at the Hill Auditorium April 1, 1972.

The Detroit band disbanded in summer 1972, yet by the following year Hunter and Ezrin were collaborating on Lou Reed's Berlin album. On September 1, 1973, Hunter shared a stage with Dick Wagner for the opening date of the tour supporting Berlin that would yield the live album Rock n Roll Animal. Where David Bowie and Mott the Hoople opened shows with atmospheric music, the Steve Hunter/Dick Wagner guitar pairing advanced the idea further. The 1977 instrumental "Eldorado Street" from Hunter's album Swept Away contains passages reminiscent of the "Intro" that influenced countless guitarists. Hunter maintains the resemblance was unintentional, though the track offers a useful window into his evolving style. Each night the tour opened with that evolving Hunter instrumental "Intro." John Cougar Mellencamp later borrowed elements from both "Intro" and Reed's "Sweet Jane" for "I Need a Lover" on the 1978 album A Biography.

While Mick Ronson and Mick Ralphs shared bills with acoustic-guitar-wielding frontmen in Bowie's and Mott the Hoople's setups, Reed now deployed a dual-guitar attack comparable to Keith Richards and Mick Taylor during the Rolling Stones' peak years. As Reed's RCA catalog—including Velvet Underground material that had already shaped Roxy Music, Bowie, Mott, and the Stones (evident in the raw "Gimme Shelter" on Live'r Than You'll Ever Be)—was being revisited, the reworking of these songs carried wide backstage consequences and left a lasting mark on artists including John Cougar, Pat Benatar via Cougar, and especially Alice Cooper. Had Hunter and Wagner stayed with Reed through his remaining RCA period, Sally Can't Dance and Coney Island Baby might have taken a markedly different shape.

When Bob Ezrin resumed work with Alice Cooper on Welcome to My Nightmare and its accompanying tour, Lou Reed followers observed their guitar heroes transfer their signature sound to Cooper's project. Hunter joined Alice Cooper for four consecutive tours between 1975 and 1978, then contributed to the 1979 film The Rose and worked with Peter Gabriel, Meat Loaf, the 1988–1989 Night of the Guitar European world tour, Tracy Chapman from 1996 to 2000, and numerous additional engagements. A period of creative restlessness during the 1980s lifted after Hunter studied with the late Ted Greene, author of Chord Chemistry. Hunter described Greene as "a complete genius as a teacher and player" and the most knowledgeable musician and guitarist he had ever encountered—an innovator who remained a major influence.

Hunter issued the solo albums Swept Away in 1977 and The Deacon in 1987 and appeared on recordings by David Lee Roth, Yvonne Elliman, Leslie West, Jack Bruce, and many others. He rejoined Wagner for concerts in Saginaw, Michigan, in the new millennium, while earlier 1970s recordings made with Buzzy Linhart by members of the Rock n Roll Animal band finally surfaced on Linhart's 2006 CD Studio. Closing the circle, Hunter participated in Lou Reed and Bob Ezrin's staged presentation of Berlin at New York's Arts at St. Ann's in December 2006 and in Sydney, Australia, the following January. After those performances Hunter stayed busy, performing again with both Lou Reed and Alice Cooper and contributing to Glen Campbell's 2011 album Ghost on the Canvas. In 2008 he released Hymns for Guitar and Short Stories. The 2013 album The Manhattan Blues Project found him exploring blues terrain with guest appearances by Joe Perry, Joe Satriani, Johnny Depp, and Marty Friedman. The concert recording Tone Poems Live arrived in 2014, followed by the studio album Before the Lights Go Out in 2017.