The Rocky Athas Group

Biography

Buddy Miles first discovered Rocky Athas’ inventive guitar playing in the late 1970’s when Rocky’s band Lightning opened for Miles Express. Rocky had already been named as one of the original “Texas Tornadoes”. It would be two years before Stevie Ray Vaughan, would receive this honor. You can open the pages of Stevie Ray Soul To Soul, by Kerri Leigh and read Rocky's recollection of childhood memories that he and Stevie Ray Vaughan shared. They were schoolmates and friends growing up in the Dall...

Buddy Miles first discovered Rocky Athas’ inventive guitar playing in the late 1970’s when Rocky’s band Lightning opened for Miles Express. Rocky had already been named as one of the original “Texas Tornadoes”. It would be two years before Stevie Ray Vaughan, would receive this honor. You can open the pages of Stevie Ray Soul To Soul, by Kerri Leigh and read Rocky's recollection of childhood memories that he and Stevie Ray Vaughan shared. They were schoolmates and friends growing up in the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff, Texas.

By age 23, Rocky Athas was honored as one of Texas’ Ten Best guitarists as an inductee to BUDDY Magazine’s TexasTornadoes. He holds this honor with such noted guitarists as ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Eric Johnson, Bugs Henderson, Johnny Winter, John Nitzinger, and Jimmy Vaughan. Athas grew up playing neighborhood gigs with childhood pal Stevie Ray Vaughan, and shortly thereafter flip-flopped headliner chores in a series of shows with another friend, Eric Johnson. No Less than Billy Gibbons, Pantera’s “Dime-Bag” Darrell Abbott, and the New Bohemians’ Kenny Withrow are long-time admirers of the Oak Cliff guitarist.

Rocky wasn’t only recognized by Texas musicians, the English rock band “Thin Lizzy” wrote the song ‘Cocky Rocky” after hearing Rocky play one night at “Mother Blues”, a local Dallas club. Queen guitarist Brian May was also on hand for those performances and was so floored by Rocky's finger tapping style that he incorporated it on the next Queen album. May later revealed that it was the guitarist from Mother Blues who first introduced him to this style, well before Eddie Van Halen became known for this.

In the late 70s and early 80s, he was the creative vortex behind Lightning, absolutely one of the biggest draws in Texas nightclub history. The band toured with the hottest arena acts of the time, including Ted Nugent, Pat Travers, The Kinks, Rick Derringer, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, and Peter Frampton. Also at that time Rocky’s fame was such that Guild introduced the Rocky Athas I guitar, and Gibson honored Rocky by making him the only non-record label endorsee in the company’s history.

Rocky took a further step up and received a well-earned and more substantial taste of the big time when he signed on as lead guitarist for the legendary Black Oak Arkansas. Rocky also played on BOA’s Ready As Hell LP, and his remarkable musical presence is indelibly etched into the grooves of the critically acclaimed album. Rocky once again joined Jim Dandy and BOA touring in 1996 through 2001. Rocky and the group recorded their latest CD The Wild Bunch which was released to great reviews in late 1999.

Subsequent to BOA Rocky has worked as a session guitarist for Polygram records out of Memphis’ Ardent Studios, and conducted a series of regional clinics in Dallas. He has co-written songs with former Deep Purple/Trapeze vocalist Glenn Hughes and released an album in 1997called Tommy Bolin Tribute. The albums release was followed by a short US tour. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.