Sospeso performs with guest artist Ladell Mclin on March 1, 2006, in Tribeca.

Ladell McLin was born to singer Marsha McLin and jazz drummer Lamont Braswell. His cousin, Marshall Thompson, was in the Chi-Lites and his brother is the blues drummer Andre Cotton. Ladell grew up in a world of rehearsals and gigs that would take members of his family away until dawn. McLin assumed he would wind up playing drums, but as his brother began spending more time on the road, backing Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy, and Junior Wells, the drums were around less and less, and Ladell found an old guitar in his aunt’s basement, along with a pile of Chuck Berry records. "I found a cord, plugged in, and started playing along."

His colleauges were pursuing hip-hop, which Ladell enjoyed, "but the blues stole my heart -- that's what I practiced all day. I was deep in the 'hood, my window was open, my amplifier was blasting, and all these people were hanging out in the alley. I'm playing Chuck Berry, Hendrix, or even Van Halen, and they're going, 'What the hell is going on up there?'"

When he turned sixteen, an impromptu replacement gig for a guitarist in a Chicago blues club lead to further opportunities. He sat in with blues guitar master, playwright, and educator Fernando Jones and his brother Foree Superstar, and his performance earned him a place in their band. He began to jam at Buddy Guy's Legends, Chicago's (and arguably the world's) top spot for blues. Initiated into the house band at Legends, McLin learned onstage from the best in the business: Koko Taylor, Johnny "Guitar” Watson, and Buddy Guy himself. He performed at the Chicago Blues Festival while still in his teens, sharing the stage with Fernando Jones, Derek Trucks, and Pine Top Perkins.

Moving to New York, he won the opportunity to tour with James "Blood" Ulmer. Ulmer's tour introduced Ladell to hip-hop drum virtuoso Swiss Chris (currently touring with John Legend) and bass player Jeremiah Landess, and the three formed an enduring bond. As the core band behind Ladell's album Stand Out, Chris and Landess connect with McLin's sound in the ballad "House I Built," the playful seduction of "Mona Lisa," “Hooked” (co-written with David Johansen of the New York Dolls), and the bitter commentary "Rich Man's Lounge." In the closing track, "Universe," McLin and Vernon Reid of Living Colour join in one of the most hair-raising guitar dialogs on record. Produced by fast-rising studio ace Brian Devine (Seedy Gonzales, Spanish Speaking Psychics), Stand Out brings McLin to the highest level of guitar. From lightning runs and razor-sharp hooks to siren-like wails that shatter into eruptions of passionate dissonance, he draws inspiration from his heroes and blasts it back with his own furious, personal eloquence.