Larry Carlton / Ларри Карлтон
Like his contemporaries Steve Khan and Lee Ritenour, Larry Carlton was a first-call session guitarist in the 70s and his distinctive, jazz-informed blues-rock sound defined seminal albums such as Steely Dan’s The Royal Scam and Joni Mitchell’s Hejira. Carlton’s own work has been more fusion-oriented, with his early albums being a precursor to what is now called smooth jazz.