David Perry Lindley was an American musician who founded the band El Rayo-X and worked with many other performers including Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, Warren Zevon, Curtis Mayfield, and Dolly Parton.

He is an expert in a variety of instruments that Acoustic Guitar magazine referred to him not as a multi-instrumentalist, but instead as a “maxi-instrumental.

Who is David Lindley?

His father amassed a sizable collection of 78 rpm recordings while Lindley was a child growing up in Los Angeles, including Korean folk and Indian sitar music. Lindley began playing the violin at the age of three, but the bridge broke. In his early teens, he switched to the baritone ukulele. Afterward, Lindley started playing the fiddle and banjo.

He won the Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest five times by the time he was in his late teens, establishing him as a distinguished performer.

He started frequenting the 60s folk music scene, going to places like the Troubador and Ash Grove, and hearing a wide range of music, including flamenco, Russian folk music, and Indian sitar music. He saw that radio programming featured a broad range of music.