Landreth soaked up the local culture in the seventies while playing with Clifton Chenier, the renowned zydeco king. Throughout this early period he was actively perfecting his playing style, one that was also coerced along by a devout interest in the method of Chet Atkins. His high regard for the music of contemporaries such as Scotty Moore, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix was matched with an inexhaustible desire to further his slide playing technique into unchartered territory. All of these attributes would later give way to the signature playing style of Sonny Landreth.