GUITAR ICON TRAVIS WAMMACK DIES AT 81

He was a pyrotechnic guitar player on a level with Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman and Eric Clapton – maybe higher. Also, different.

Travis Wammack of Tuscumbia, Alabama died Friday at age 81 after declining health. He had played guitar and sang and performed as long as he could. 69 years.

Arrangements will be announced. Prayers for his wife Mitzi, family and many friends and fans.

Travis was one of the few folks who got to have his "celebration of life" while he was still alive and could attend and enjoy it. He got to hear what everyone said about him. He got to see who showed up and who didn't.

It was held on June 3, 2025. It included many musicians whose paths had crossed with Travis Wammack – if they were still alive and able.

It was an all-Alabama and all-American list of musicians:

Guitarists Will McFarland, Mitch Mann and Kelvin Holly; bassists Jimbo Hart and Bob Wray; keyboardists Clayton Ivey and Randy McCormick; Muscle Shoals Horns alumnus Ronnie Eades; vocalists Marie Lewey and Cindy Walker; Snakeman Band drummers Chris Forrest, Jimmy Whitehead and Mike Lawley.

Guest vocalists/musicians Wayne Chaney, Jerry Phillips, Mickey Buckins, Lenny LeBlanc, Travis "Monkee" Wammack, Jr., Dave "Microwave Dave" Gallaher, The Midnighters, and the Cartee Brothers.

The musicians told Travis Wammack stories. Of course, a few Travis Wammack stories cannot be told.

Wammack's legacy will live on. He placed his name on a University of North Alabama Entertainment Industry Program scholarship. The June 3 event raised funds for the Travis Wammack Endowed Scholarship.

With Travis in declining health and in retirement, the June 3, 2025 tribute marked the official closing chapter of a long musical life. This is the type tribute that Elvis and Roy Orbison never had while they were alive to see it.

Several places lay claim to Travis. Walnut, Miss., where he was born. Memphis, where he first started playing as a studio musician for any act that needed a guitarist. And Muscle Shoals, where he himself recorded and backed up musicians for decades.

Travis, then a little-known studio guitarist, had experimented for months in the early Sixties with adaptations to his speakers. He wanted to produce a certain guitar sound, sort of a scratchy, distorted tone.

He got it. The sound. He made arrangements to present his invention to musical promoters in Memphis. They didn't like it, or didn't get it. Or maybe they just acted like they didn't get it. They sent him home empty-handed.

A few months later, Travis was driving down the road listening to the radio. He heard the sound that he himself had developed at the beginning of a new record. He almost had a wreck.

"That is my sound," he said to himself.

After the guitar intro that was distinctly his distorted sound, the singer joined in:

"I can't get no .... Satisfactshun. I can't get no .... Satisfactshun..."

It was the Rolling Stones releasing their latest, and it was destined to go Number One. It made that distorted, scratchy guitar sound famous. Many other musicians using fuzztone followed.

To this day, Travis Wammack remains convinced that somebody in Memphis stole his idea to produce fuzztone. He never got credit for the invention of the nuevo guitar sound of the '60s and '70s, and he never got any money.

The sound caught on without attribution to Travis. It is called by different names and has a few variations: shredding, guitar pyrotechnics, Fuzztone, distortion, and Scratchy, which became the title of a solo instrumental hit by Travis Wammack himself in 1964 when he was 17 years old.

Finally, maybe Travis Wammack will get credit from the public and from the musical players from 1960 until now. Maybe, just maybe, the untold story of Travis Wammack and his guitar innovation will be told.

The Travis tribute was also the 68th anniversary of Wammack's entry into the professional music business. That may qualify for the Guinness Book of World Records. He has been in the music business since he was 11, when he became the youngest member of the musicians' union-also a record.

One high point in Wammack's career was spending 12 years, from 1984 to 1996, as rock legend Little Richard's band leader and lead guitarist.

"I put his band together," Wammack said. "He called me wanting a good Southern rock and roll band."

And at 81, he still loved it. He has never burned out. His health has put him into retirement, but not his feelings toward music and musicians.

Wammack started his career in the Memphis music scene in the Sixties. In 1969, he felt the call to be a studio guitarist at Rick Hall's FAME Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals. That was it. It was Sweet Home Alabama after that.

The author, Jim Zig Zeigler, is a freelance writer. He is former State Auditor and Public Service Commissioner. He got to experience Travis Wammack in 1965 at the Recreation Center ("The Rec") in Sylacauga. That was only 61 years ago.