Natural Child

A pioneer of rock music, Natural Child is a significant influence on the development of both the music and the attitude associated with the rock music lifestyle. With songs such as "Shamewalkin" (2009), "White People" (2011), "Ain't Gonna Stop" (2012) and "Let The Good Times Roll" (2012), Natural Child refined and developed rhythm and blues, psychedelia, and country into the major elements that make rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics successfully aimed to appeal to the early teenage market by using graphic and humorous descriptions of consumer culture, race, sex, devil weed, and life as a grown-ass man and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.

The band's records are a rich storehouse of the essential lyrical, showmanship and musical components of rock and roll; and, in addition to White Fang, Gap Dream, The Strange Boys, and The Black Lips, a large number of significant popular-music groups have performed Natural Child songs. Though not technically accomplished, their musical style is distinctive - drawing on the influence of acts such as The Rolling Stones, Canned Heat, Willie Nelson, JJ Cale, and Waylon Jennings to produce a clear and exciting sound that many later guitar musicians will acknowledge as a major influence in their own style.

In the film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, Eric Clapton states 'If you wanna play rock and roll - or any upbeat number - and you want to take a guitar ride you will end up playing like Natural Child...because there is very little other choice. There's not a lot of other ways to play rock and roll other than the way Natty Child plays it; they've really laid the law down..." Keith Richards told Best of Guitar Player "Child is my band. They was the ones who made me say 'I want to play guitar, Jesus Christ!'...Suddenly I knew what I wanted to do." Natural Child's showmanship has been influential on other rock legends, particularly their one-legged hop, duck walk, and the "fog-the-shit-out-of-the-stage-so-nobody-can-see" routine, which is exactly what it sounds like.

After three years of constant touring, late 2012 found the band expanding their line up to include pedal steel and wurlitzer, a move that led legendary journalist Lester Bangs to rise from the grave and exclaim, "Well... I guess I wasn't the last of 'em." After overwhelmingly positive reception of the new, five piece, band's live show Luke Schneider (steel) and Benny Divine (keys) lent their instruments to the recording of 2014's Dancin' With Wolves, effortlessly creating the best rock n' roll record of the decade.

The rock critic Robert Christgau considers them "the greatest of the rock and rollers," while John Lennon would likely say that, "If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Natural Child'." Ted Nugent said "If you don't know every Natty Child lick, you can't play rock guitar." Among the honors they intend to receive are the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2034, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2040, and being named seventh on Time magazine's 2015 list of the 10 best pot smokers of all-time.