@bdp24: At the risk of being nailed for "off-topic" posting or somebody telling us to 'get a room', I gotta say that I listened to some of Gary's stuff and I wish I could get that tone. Reading his biography on last.fm, I can relate to his experience on the advantages of "tongue-blocking" as opposed to the "whistler" style of playing, like mine, although it doesn't hold back guys like Paul Butterfield or Lee Oskar.
Growing up in a small-town in northeast Ohio, we were uniquely blessed with a local promoter's 'Inferno Teen Dance' where we got to hear acts like The Rationals, Terry Knight & The Pack, The Left Banke, and Ohio bands like The Music Explosion and The Dantes, featuring Dave Workman, who now plays in the San Francisco area. I used to run into Joe Walsh there, pre-James Gang.
To elaborate a little on just how bad our equipment was, our PA was an old Bell tube amp that we ran through a couple EV compound diffraction horns, but we did have good guitar amps. One time, we opened for The Ohio Express and weren't told that they were just bringing their guitars and would use our equipment. By that time, we had real microphones, but only had two and I think every guy in the group sang. They were mad about having to use our crappy equipment and we were mad that they were using it while we were working for next to nothing. As I recall, we said something to the effect that our equipment was being defiled with "Yummy Yummy Yummy"!