Larry Carlton

Larry Carlton is one of those guitarists who shaped the sound of an entire era without most casual listeners even knowing his name — and that's actually kind of impressive. The Torrance, California kid who came up through the studios became the secret weapon behind so many iconic records: Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, countless others. His tone on that Gibson ES-335 is instantly recognizable — warm, fluid, never showy for its own sake. Four Grammy wins, including Best Pop Instrumental Performance awards in '81 and '87, tell part of the story, but the real testament is those hundreds of sessions and over 100 gold records. As a solo artist he brought that same taste and groove to his own records. I genuinely think he's one of the most underrated names in American music history.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Name (English)

Larry Carlton

Name (Japanese)

ラリー・カールトン

Reading

らりー・かーるとん

Born

March 2, 1948 (age 78)

Origin

Torrance, California, United States

Occupation

guitarist / composer / music educator / jazz musician / singer

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Pisces / Rat

High school

Narbonne High School

Awards & achievements

• 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album
• 1981 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance
• 1987 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance

• Official sitehttps://larrycarlton.com/
• Xhttps://x.com/LarryCarlton
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry%20Carlton
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A9%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%BB%E3%82%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%88%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q452227

Tags

• California
• guitarist
• composer
• music educator

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.