Rainer Ptacek
| Rainer Ptacek | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Rainer Jaromir Ptaček |
| Also known as | Rainer |
| Born |
June 7, 1951 East Berlin, East Germany |
| Died | November 12, 1997 (aged 46) Tucson, Arizona, U.S. |
| Genres | Blues, blues-rock, New Acoustic, contemporary folk, Americana, American Primitivism |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Guitar |
| Years active | 1970s–1997 |
| Associated acts | Giant Sand, The Band of Blacky Ranchette |
| Website | Rainer official website |
| Notable instruments | |
| Dobro, National Steel Guitar | |
Rainer Ptacek (a.k.a. Rainer; June 7, 1951 – November 12, 1997) was a Tucson, Arizona-based American guitarist and singer-songwriter. His guitar technique, which incorporated slide, finger-picking, tape loops and electronic manipulation, earned him admiration of some notable musicians such as Robert Plant and Billy Gibbons. A tribute album to Ptacek, The Inner Flame, included contributions by Plant, Jimmy Page, PJ Harvey, Emmylou Harris and others, and was indicative of his reputation as a "musician's musician". He was diagnosed with a brain tumor in early 1996 and died nearly two years later, after the illness recurred.
Ptacek was born in East Berlin to a family of Czech and German descent. His family fled East Germany for the United States when he was five years old. They eventually settled in Chicago, where young Ptacek was first exposed to blues music. He moved to Tucson in the early 1970s, where he began his own musical career, most often solo, but sometimes he plugged in and led a trio as Rainer & Das Combo. He co-founded Giant Sandworms with Howe Gelb in the late 1970s. When the band decided to move to New York, he opted to stay in Tucson to make sure that he would not disrupt his then-new family. Although he never became well known in the United States, he became more and more recognized in Europe. ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons was so impressed with the singer-guitarist that he arranged to have Kurt Loder review Ptacek's "Mush Mind Blues" single in Rolling Stone. Ptacek later returned to Houston at the invitation from Billy Gibbons to complete the recordings at Gibbons' Gold Star Sound Services studio which saw release as "The Texas Tapes" meeting international attention and approval. Robert Plant, similarly impressed, flew Ptacek to England for the sessions for B-sides to supplement the singles from Fate of Nations.
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