Jonny Lang is of Norwegian descent and was born in Fargo, North Dakota, United States. He started playing the guitar at the age of 12. He got his start playing guitar for his friends on the Villagers’ porch at their lake place. He would play everything from modern hits to the classics, even performing an astounding rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s take on the National Anthem.

Soon after his father took him to see the Bad Medicine Blues Band, one of the few blues bands in Fargo, Lang started taking guitar lessons from Ted Larsen, the band’s guitar player. Several months after Lang began, he joined the band, which was then renamed Kid Jonny Lang & The Big Bang. Two years later A&M Records, then home of Janet Jackson and Soundgarden, was invited to come to see him at a live performance at Bunkers Bar in Minneapolis, and he was signed to the label becoming the latest in a trend of young blues guitarists that then included Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Derek Trucks.

The band moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and independently released the album Smokin’ when Lang was 14. He was signed to A&M Records in 1996. He released the critically acclaimed multi-platinum Lie to Me on January 28, 1997. The next album, Wander this World, was released on October 20, 1998, and earned a Grammy nomination. This was followed by the more soulful Long Time Coming on October 14, 2003.

Lang also made a cover of Edgar Winter’s “Dying to Live”. Lang’s 2006 album, the gospel-influenced Turn-Around, won him his first Grammy Award.