Luck is an acoustic steel guitarist’s guitarist. His ballistic right-hand finger style and use of open tunings produces complex orchestrations and a massive sound from the solo instrument. More importantly, his songs are simply terrific—at once engaging and conflicted. Much of his output has been instrumentals that his friends like to call “emotional landscapes.” Recently, his focus has shifted to lyrics. He has been a professional songwriter for over 40 years.

In the 60s, Luck had a weekly live radio show (while still in high school), performed in support of the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, and was a member of a number of music insider bands (including the Coney Island Whitefish), playing everything from bluegrass to rock. (Being an activist in the 60s could be dangerous. During a live performance, Luck narrowly escaped an attack by racist thugs armed with lead pipes. He later dodged the fire bombing of a radio station, after a live broadcast.)

Luck also produced a series of film soundtracks and won a Golden Cine Award for best use of sound. He produced a 3-minute band film for The Coney Island Whitefish, a precursor of music videos. In the summer of ‘67, Luck met Bert Jansch in London. Over the next five years, he recorded exclusively with audio engineering genius Tom Holman, inventor of THX and recently 10.2 sound. An original music track for a multimedia exhibition, which he recorded with Holman in ’69, ran publicly for over twenty years.

His early 70s band, The Ensemble, opened for many performers at Chicago’s Earl of Old Town, including the Steve Goodman, Bonnie Kolac, Segal-Schwall Band, Jerry Jeff Walker and John Fahey. Luck’s Sweet Lady James helped launch the career of Danny Fogelberg and was a favorite of WLS DJ Larry Lujack. He studied songwriting in LA, attending lectures by one of his personal heroes, Henry Mancini. Luck opened solo for a John Fahey concert and performed occasionally at the University of Illinois, Urbana. But, his growing family became his primary focus. Although Luck continued to write and record commercial work throughout the decade, his public performances dwindled to annual events by the early 80s.

He never stopped composing, however. In 1997, Luck released his first CD, White Light, featuring many songs written in the ‘80s. White Light is self-recorded acoustic guitar, enhanced by MIDI orchestration. “It is kind of hard for me to tell when a song was written because they all continue evolve…over decades sometimes,” says Luck. “They have a beginning. But no end, as long as I’m around to play them.”

His latest CD, Third Rail, includes instrumentals that contain some elements over twenty-years old. “I just make up riffs that feel good and save them until I find their brothers,” he says. The compilation also includes a lot of material written in the past year, including I’ll Find Someone (But It Won’t Be You). The 16 songs that are Third Rail offer a wide variety of styles, but focus on love and relationships. This is definitely Luck’s most personal work to date. It sometimes gets uncomfortably close to the bone—concise and edgy songwriting.

Third Rail has been in production on and off for over a year. It features friends singer Kathy Cowan, keyboardist extraordinaire Stuart Leitch, string virtuoso Chico Welch, and percussionist Michael Taylor.