He is a guitarist, songwriter and teacher born in Oakland, California, who began playing when he was thirteen years old.
After having played with various local groups he joined the band The Virtues who performed covers of the Top 40 hits. In 1967 they changed their name to Country Weather and began writing using their own material and this resulted in them opening for acts such as Jeff Beck, Sly & The Family Stone and Ten Years After. The group disbanded in 1972 and he became a co-founder of Mistress which gave many live shows and recorded the album Free Flyte which was unsuccessful at the time but has recently been re-released with good reviews.
Deciding to give up being a front man and feeling somewhat disillusioned he disbanded Mistress and was asked to join Soundhole who were to be a backing band for Van Morrison. This would become a turning point and he would soon make several national tours with the band as well as record an album with the guitarist Link Wray.
In 1975 he joined Hot Tuna, which was a spin-off group from Jefferson Airplane and a year later he co-founded the band Raven and would perform with a range of artists such as Bo Diddley, Kathi MacDonald and Charlie Musselwhite. Also in 1976 he met up with Lonnie Turner who played with the Steve Miller Band and after working together to add words to a guitar riff he had first used in his Mistress days, the song “Jungle Love” was created and he was asked by Steve Miller to a recording session as he was going to use it for his Book of Dreams album. This led him to become a Steve Miller Band member for the next three years, writing and co-writing several of his songs, and at the same time working with Mistress who had reformed.
His career was almost cut short in 1977 when he had fallen through a plateglass window, nearly losing his hand, but somehow through microsurgery and willpower he was back working in two months. In 1978 he began working with Tom Johnston of the Doobie Brothers in his band and he would record and touring with them over the next two years as well as appear with acts such as Paul Butterfield, Gene Clark, Tom Fogerty and Country Joe McDonald as well as co-writing Eddie Money’s “Trinidad”.
1982 came along and he became a member of the Greg Kihn Band and toured and recorded with them for a three year period before hanging up his hat after twenty years of constant recording and being on the road.
He changed his life completely by going to work for the company AT&T as a network service salesman but after a six or seven year stint he decided to return to the business and recorded his first solo album and work with several musicians from an all-star band that include Carmine Appice, Joey Molland, Carmine Rojas and Chris Slade.
Albums he has appeared on throughout the course of his career have seen five reaching platinum status, and they include his own Maelstrom, The Natives Are Restless and Holiday Favorites on Solo Acoustic Guitar, Country Weather by Country Weather, Lovin’ in the Valley of the Moon by Norton Buffalo , Book of Dreams and Greatest Hits 1974-1978 by The Steve Miller Band , Kihnsolidation by Greg Kihn, Too Close for Comfort by Terry & The Pirates and Peace on Earth by Country Joe McDonald.
He also began writing and has published many articles in the magazine Outre as well as two instructional DVDs for guitar. As a teacher he has tutored up to seventy students a week in Escondido and Oceanside in California.
Steve Miller Band Recordings
Baby Wanna Dance (Steve Miller )
Sources:
- http://www.gregdouglass.com/
- http://www.myspace.com/gregdouglassguitar
- http://www.bay-area-bands.com/bab00043.htm
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Douglass
- http://www.answers.com/topic/greg-douglass-lead-guitar?cat=entertainment