Amos Garrett (born November 26, 1941) is an American-Canadian blues and blues-rock musician, guitarist, singer, composer, and musical arranger.
Over the course of his career, Garrett has recorded with more than 150 artists, ranging from Stevie Wonder, Todd Rundgren and Pearls Before Swine to Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Bonnie Raitt and Martin Mull.
[1] The guitarist Jimmy Page, of Led Zeppelin, stated Garrett was one of his favorite American guitar players in a 1975 Rolling Stone interview.
[1] After studying English literature at Wabash College, he opted to pursue a career in music and moved back to Toronto in 1962.
[5] From 1964 to 1967, Garrett played in the Toronto jug/string band, the Dirty Shames, which included Chick Roberts, Jim McCarthy and Carol Robinson.
[7] In 1968, Garrett began a two-year stint of touring and recording with the Canadian duo Ian & Sylvia, which led to becoming a founding member of Great Speckled Bird.
As a special feature on the DVD release of the film, Great Speckled Bird is shown playing the Dylan-Manuel song "Tears of Rage".
[8] Based there, he performed and recorded with artists that were part of Albert Grossman's Bearsville stable, such as Bobby Charles, Todd Rundgren and Jesse Winchester, and as a member of Paul Butterfield’s Better Days.
He played the guitar solo on Maria Muldaur's hit single "Midnight at the Oasis", which reached number 6 on the Billboard chart in June 1974.
[citation needed] After living in Boston for two years, Garrett moved to San Francisco in 1976 to pursue session work.
[1] Garrett shared performing and recording duties and co-wrote two songs for the 1988 album The Return of the Formerly Brothers with the late Doug Sahm and the pianist Gene Taylor.
[4] That year also brought the album I Make My Home in My Shoes, which paid tribute to his boyhood days, especially on "Stanley Street", a song written in recollection of the Esquire Club.
[10][11] With Garrett, the band has backed such acts as Richard Thompson, Solomon Burke, Ruth Brown, Rick Danko, Jay McShann, Johnnie Johnson and Rosco Gordon.