Jazz guitarist born in 1942 in Yorkshire, England. McLaughlin started his career in the 1960s as a sideman for blues musicians Alexis Korner and Graham Bond and a session studio guitarist for singers such as Petula Clark and Dionne Warwick. Mired by personal struggles to make a living as a musician, McLaughlin made his professional debut with his album “Extrapolation” in 1969 and moved to the United States to be a studio guitarist with famous jazz musicians such as Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Larry Coryell and Tony Williams, with whom he formed the Tony Williams Lifetime with.

After two albums with the Tony Williams Lifetime, he left the aforementioned band in 1970 due to management issues and made himself a household name with a few electric-flavoured solo albums and forming the Mahavishnu Orchestra, as a homage to his then-guru Sri Chinmoy, with whom he was a student of. McLaughlin ventured further with acoustic, Indian-inspired music with Shakti in 1974, but returned to composing electric jazz music by 1978.

He went on to form several acoustic trios, most notably with Paco de Lucia, and Al di Meola, throughout from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. From the 1980s to the 2000s, McLaughlin moved to France and later Monaco and was involved in several projects, such the Synclavier-featured Mahavishnu, touring with his then-spouse and pianist Katia Labèque and the group Remember Shakti. From the 2000s to today, he formed another group called the Fourth Dimension but has since retired from touring in 2017, concentrating on studio recordings.