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Frequently Asked Questions
About Acoustic Guitar
Who Should I Listen To? (Great Acoustic Guitarists)
This is a very subjective
topic. There are tons of great musicians to choose
from. There are many who are often cited as being masters
in a particular style, or having a style all their own that sets them
apart from the rest of the guitar playing community. The
following list is by no means definitive. It is merely a listing
of the artists and performers who frequently come up in discussions on
rmmga. Think of the following recommendations as a survey of
acoustic guitar musical styles, as well as a survey of great
musicians. For a more complete lists see:
Fingerstyle
Fingerstyle guitar
can be broken down into two basic categories, old and new. By
old, we generally mean country blues popularized during the 1920's and
30's by black artists in the South, Chicago, and New York.
By new, we mean contemporaries of these popular country blues players,
as well as modern players who have developed their own style or
greatly expanded upon the ideas of those who preceded them.
Early
20th Century
The most
extensive historic list of these artists can be found on
Wikipedia. But here is selected set of significant
artists, but by no means all inclusive.
Contemporary
EDITORS NOTE:
Over the last 10 years, this list has gotten huge. What
is listed here is not really representative of all the significant
fingerstyle guitar players today. I will attempt to fill this
in as time goes on.
- Chet Atkins
We really don't need to tell anything about this guy do we?
- Muriel
Anderson
Muriel Anderson was raised in a musical family in Downers Grove,
Illinois. Her mother taught piano and her grandfather had
played saxophone in John Philip Sousa's band. Muriel
fell in love with the guitar at age ten and learned every style
available to her, culminating in classical guitar study at
DePaul University. She went on to study with classical
virtuoso Christopher Parkening and with Nashville legend Chet
Atkins. In 1989 Muriel won the National
Fingerpicking Guitar Championship.
-
Duck
Baker
Richard Royall "Duck" Baker is a fingerpicker of
the first order. He first became widely known for his
recordings on Kicking Mule Records containing fingerpicked
arrangements of Irish and Celtic tunes. Thereafter
he began arranging for fingerpicked guitar other musical genres,
including ragtime, blues, renaissance, swing, and
jazz. He has also produced anthologies of
fingerpicking guitar music for Kicking Mule and Shanachie
records, and lessons for Stephen Grossman's Guitar
Workshop. Recently, he has been recording and
touring with his wife, Molly Andrews, performing a collection of
songs under the broad classification "American
Traditional". Unlike many professional musicians, Duck is
an articulate writer, so he frequently writes articles and
liner-notes as well as guitar lessons.
- Pierre
Bensusan
Pierre Bensusan's name has become synonymous with contemporary
acoustic guitar genius, long before the terms New Age or World
Music were invented. Working exclusively in
the unusual DADGAD tuning, Pierre has developed a bittersweet
melodic approach that incorporates Folk, Celtic, Jazz,
Impressionist, Brazilian, Medieval, Latin, North African
rhythms, wordless vocals and French songs. Bensusan has
established himself as a compelling concert performer and a
stellar contributor to worldwide music festivals.
- Pat Donohue
Pat Donohue is "a masterful guitarist and talented
singer-songwriter of blues, folk and jazz" (Los Angeles
Times). His talents are displayed weekly in his appearances
on public radio’s
A Prairie Home Companion where
his guitar playing writing and singing are featured
regularly.
-
Doyle Dykes
Truly, nothing one might say or hear about Doyle Dykes can
prepare the listener for the actual experience of hearing him
play the guitar. Like a number of great guitarists, this
resident of the Tennessee River Valley is blessed with a natural
affinity for the instrument, which he has developed into
virtuoso technique through many years of hard work and
dedication. However, Dykes' talent goes well beyond the
kind of technical prowess that comes with practice and
repetition. Both by writing dazzlingly original
compositions and by creating dynamic, interpretive arrangements
of standard and sacred repertoire (much of it rarely attempted
on solo guitar), he transforms his impressive skills into an
emotionally powerful tool for musical communication.
-
Tommy Emmanuel The guy Chet Atkins called one of
the greatest guitar players on the planet....and that ain't no
lie!
- Alex de Grassi
Alex de Grassi recorded his first album Turning: Turning
Back in 1978 for Will Ackerman's then-fledgling Windham
Hill label (Acoustic Guitar magazine recently cited this album
among the top ten essential finger-style
recordings). The overwhelmingly positive response to
the album and the follow-up, Slow Circle, launched him
on a career as one of the most innovative fingerstyle guitarists
and composers of eclectic music.
- Ed Gerhard
With musical inspirations ranging from Andrés Segovia to
Mississippi John Hurt, Ed Gerhard has created a "guitar
voice" of his own that is being recognized and praised
worldwide. Known for his gorgeous tone and compositional
depth, Gerhard can move a listener with a single note.
- Laurence
Juber
Laurence Juber has been
playing guitar for over 35 years, and was the lead guitarist in
Paul McCartney's band, Wings, winning a "Best Rock
Instrumental" Grammy for the song, "Rockestra".
However, Laurence, best known to his fans as "LJ", has
since established himself as a musician in his own right,
releasing six acoustic guitar instrumental cd's, featuring his
unique fingerstyle technique and extensive use of alternate
tunings.
- Phil Keaggy
Quote from Tom Loredo: For those of you wondering
who Keaggy is, he is best known as an incredibly brilliant and
lyrical guitarist, a master of a wide variety of acoustic and
electric styles. Much of his music is characterized as
"Contemporary Christian Music" (CCM), and thus he has
not received the attention his talent deserves. An
interview with Keaggy appears in the May/June 1992 issue of Acoustic
Guitar with the subtitle, "One of the best guitar
players you may never have heard"!
- Steven King
Recording artist Steven King is an "acoustic jazz"
fingerstylist whose skills won him the National Fingerpicking
Championship at the prestigious Walnut Valley Festival, in
Winfield, Kansas. An accomplished improviser, composer,
orchestrator, arranger, and accompanist, Steven's favorite
performance mode is the acoustic guitar. He is that rare
guitarist who convincingly executes simultaneous
("true") walking bass lines, chords, melodies, and
rhythms. Steven's many recordings of original and cover material
and two instructional videos have elicited superlatives from the
guitar press, and dealers have nothing but praise for his Taylor
workshops.
-
Leo Kottke
Quoted from a bio by B.A.
Head:
Leo has had a prolific career, delivering 19 studio records,
four live records, six compilations and at least four movie
soundtracks. He has jammed and recorded with a wide range
of musicians, from Chet Atkins to Procul Harum to the Violent
Femmes. He has won the Guitar Player magazine
annual readers poll as best folk guitarist for four years in a
row, from 1974 to 1978. Leo has also influenced an entire
generation of acoustic guitarists -- including such fingerstyle
innovators as the late, great Michael Hedges, Preston Reed,
Peppino D'Agostino and Don Ross, to name just a few. Given
these accomplishments and the general accessibility of his
music, it is unbelievable and almost tragic that relatively so
few members of the general public have heard of him.
In the more than 25 years that Leo has been composing,
arranging and playing guitar music, his style has evolved from
the blindingly fast and aggressive to the rhythmically delicate
and intricate. He is always reinventing and reinterpreting
his own music and that of others. While you'll usually find Leo
in the "folk" section of your record store, or
sometimes in the "new age" section and rarely in the
"jazz" section, his music is in fact all and none of
these: it is simply "Leo."
-
Adrian
Legg
An amazing electric fingerstyle guitarist. He
plays custom made ovation guitars, and uses alternate tunings
almost exclusively. His music includes anything from
bluegrass to waltzes, with lots in between. His style and
sound are very unique; he does lots of string bends, and uses
quick-tuners mid-song which sometimes mimicks a pedal-steel
guitar. During his concerts, he talks almost as much as he
plays; which can be just as entertaining as he relates song
origins, his British background, and humorous thoughts on life
in general.
- Billy
McLaughlin
Billy McLaughlin is recognized as one of the world's finest
guitarists and composers. He was named "Acoustic
Guitarist of the Year by the Minnesota Music Academy in
1996. His electrifying live performances and independently
released albums have garnered rave reviews and high profile
visibility from the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post,
Billboard and Acoustic Musician. He is currently
performing more than 125 concerts a year.
- El McMeen
El McMeen is an accomplished fingerstyle player who
specializes primarily in "Celtic Music". He is
considered to be THE authority on this style of music. He
has 5 books published by Mel Bay which are dedicated to this
popular style. He has recorded 4 albums as well as an
instructional video. If you like the Celtic style of music
and want to learn to play this style, El McMeen's music, books,
and web site should be on your list.
-
Dorian Michael
A guitarist/composer with
roots in neofolk stylings representative of early Leo Kottke
recordings, Michael is nonetheless his own musical
man. Crisp picking, rhythmic drive, a diversity of
well-crafted compositions and intensity balanced with a sense of
humor characterize this fine artist. He has studied and
worked with almost every style except flamenco (never wanting to
play quite that fast.)
- Franco Morone
This top Italian
fingerstylist is recognized and praised as one of the most
gifted performers of the international guitar scene.
- Al Petteway
Al Petteway has
won 12 WAMMIE awards (Washington [D.C.] Area Music Association
awards) for his instrumental albums, which feature some of the
nicest fingerstyle playing fusing Celtic and American traditions
you're likely to hear, often with accompaniment by Uilleann
pipes, digeridoo, bodhran, and other traditional instruments.
- Preston Reed
Preston Reed
plays acoustic steel string guitar in a revolutionary,
self-invented percussive style that integrates simultaneous
melodies and drum rhythms. Drawing on jazz, rock, funk and
ethnic musical influences and combining the skills of a drummer,
keyboardist and guitarist, Preston performs unique compositions
that transform the guitar as we know it into a new
instrument. Called "phenomenal" by Al DiMeola
and "inspiring" by the late Michael Hedges,
Preston's solo concerts are amazing and delighting audiences
throughout the world while his workshops challenge an entire
generation of guitar players to think differently about the
creative possibilities of the acoustic guitar.
- Chris
Proctor
Chris Proctor was a pioneer
of the contemporary fingerstyle guitar movement, arriving on the
scene after Leo Kottke but before the Windham Hill label
popularized the style in the early '80s. Since then, Chris has
won the national fingerpicking competition at the prestigious
Winfield festival, and has released several exceptional,
well-received albums of original music, as well as instructional
videos and books. As one of Taylor's most active clinicians,
Chris is on the road most of the year, interspersing workshops
with the numerous concerts he performs all over the country, and
charming audiences with a style one critic referred to as
"baroque folk."
-
John
Renbourn
John Renbourn has been at
the forefront of innovative acoustic guitar playing since the
mid-sixties when, along with Davey Graham and Bert Jansch, he
was in the vanguard of the British Folk Revival. He was a
founder member of the successful "Folk Baroque" group,
Pentangle, and then went on to form other alliances such as the
John Renbourn Group and Ship of Fools.
John's musical tastes range from
classic American Folk/Blues through medieval and early classical
to Jazz and his current interest in Celtic music. Apart from his
numerous solo recordings and appearances, he regularly performs
with a wide variety of other artists such as Robin Williamson,
Isaac Guillory, Stefan Grossman, Archie Fisher, and Duck Baker.
- Don Ross
Don Ross has emerged as one of the most respected musicians in
Canada and one of the top guitarists in the world. In
September 1996, he managed to do what no other player has done:
win the prestigious U.S. National Fingerstyle Guitar
Championship for the second time (he first won in 1988). The
competition, held yearly in Winfield, Kansas, cannot be won only
with immaculate technique, but the player's music must also
display a high degree of emotion and intensity — hallmarks of
Don's style.
- Martin
Simpson
Martin
Simpson is one of the
world's premiere acoustic guitarists, and a powerful songwriter
with a rich, charactered voice. His playing is quite
idiosyncratic, instantly recognizable, and revered among guitar
fans. His body of work is diverse, encompassing all types of
traditional and acoustic music, and he has toured with everyone
from June Tabor to Steve Miller. Another
great Simpson site.
- Tim Sparks
Here is what Leo Kottke has to say about Tim Sparks: "I'm Tim Sparks' biggest fan.
His stuff is very difficult to play but it doesn't sound
difficult. I think that's real musicianship. He's
really one of the best musicians I know." Let's
face it, when you get that kind of respect from Leo Kottke ...
what more needs to be said.
Flatpicking/Bluegrass
Though bluegrass
and old-time string band music have been around for a long time, the
use of guitar as a lead instrument is a fairly recent
development. The styles of flatpick guitar for other than rhythm
playing range from relatively simple statements of song/tune melodies
to spontaneous melodic improvisation much as a jazz soloist might
play.
Most bluegrass and flatpicking guitarists play dreadnought
guitars. There are a few reasons for this: a) Tradition:
"Well, that's what Uncle Newt and Cousin Stub played." b)
Bass response: Dreadnoughts have a strong bass response, which makes
them the ideal guitar for playing rhythm behind a string band. c)
Loud: Bluegrass/flatpicking guitarists have to compete with
_seriously_ loud instruments like banjos and fiddles.
Small-bodied guitars sound sweet by themselves, but they quickly get
lost when doing single-string lead work in an ensemble that includes
louder instruments.
Norman Blake
Norman Blake plays in a deceptively simple, elegant
style. He's not a 900-mile-an-hour fire-breathing monster, as
are some of the folks discussed below (see Tony Rice, Mark
O'Connor). He plays in a syncopated, chord-based,
"self-contained" style in which the melody and chords are
played together. Not really a "bluegrass"
guitarist as such, he classifies his music as "old-time
country", though it's quite different from what is usually
called "old-time" music nowadays. One of his chief
claims to fame is resurrecting obscure old fiddle tunes and songs
and arranging them for guitar. Good examples of such tunes are
"President Garfield's Hornpipe," "Bonaparte Crossing
the Rhine," and "Whiskey Before Breakfast" (which has
become a standard part of most flatpickers' repertoire).
He's been a studio musician
on many albums (including Bob Dylan's "Nashville Skyline"
and Michelle Shocked's "Arkansas Traveller"). He's usually
found in the company of his wife Nancy (who accompanies him on a
1929 Martin 00-45 and cello). Norman Blake's instrument
of choice is a 1934 Martin D-18, which is a mahogany dreadnought
with wide fingerboard, slotted peghead, and 12 frets clear of the
body.
Maybelle Carter
Maybelle (of carter family fame) wasn't a flashy picker,
but is generally credited for popularizing the style where the
melody is picked on the bass strings. I believe she was
using the style as early as the late 20's.
Dan Crary
Dan Crary is one of the inventors of the style. He is
a very fleet and fluid player who invented many of the licks and
runs that have become standard cliches of the flatpicking
vocabulary. Dan Crary's instrument of choice is a Taylor Dan
Crary model, which is a 14-fret cutaway rosewood dreadnought.
Steve
Kaufman
Steve Kaufman is the only three-time winner of the National
Flatpicking Championship, which is held yearly in Winfield Kansas,
USA. Steve is an extremely inventive, humorous, and fluid player,
with impeccable tone and a seemingly bottomless well of
improvisational ideas. His melodic material seems to be more
based in traditional melodies and harmonies than in the blues and
jazz vocabularies as with, say, Mark O'Connor and Tony Rice.
He also has lots of instructional material available, and he (or
more usually his answering machine) can be reached by phone at
1-800-FLATPIK. He publishes a free quarterly publication
called "The Flatpicking Hotline." Steve Kaufman's
current instrument of choice is a seven-string Gallagher cutaway
rosewood dreadnought. (The seventh string is tuned to a low B,
two octaves below the second string. He uses a 0.066" gauge for
the seventh string.)
Mark O'Connor
Though known these days primarily as a prolific Nashville
studio session fiddler, Mark O'Connor is a virtuoso flatpicker of
the highest order. A child prodigy, he won the National
Flatpicking Championship at age 14. His playing is very fast,
very clean, and melodically very chromatic and intense. Many
of his melodic ideas seem closely related to those of jazz guitarist
Django Reinhardt and saxophonist John Coltrane.
Tony Rice
Tony Rice is one of the true visionaries in the world of
flatpick guitar. He's a very adept player and is a brilliant linear
improvisor, with a vocabulary all his own. A significant
portion of his playing is based in the pentatonic and blues scales,
and he has a rhythmic drive that no-one can match. He can
develop a line that moves logically between very
traditional-sounding melodic areas and some very modern-sounding
modal/pentatonic areas. One striking aspect of Tony's playing
is the evenness of his articulation - it's almost more like a piano
or even a clarinet than a guitar. Melodically, Tony Rice is
the player that it seems most young flatpickers try to sound like
(with varying results and degrees of success). Until recently,
his instrument of choice was the famous Clarence White/Tony Rice
herringbone, a modified pre-war Martin D-28 with a large soundhole
and non-original, bound fingerboard with no fret markers. That
guitar was damaged last year when his house was
flooded. His current instrument of choice is a
Santa Cruz Tony Rice Model D, which is basically a copy of the
White/Rice 'bone.
Doc Watson
Doc Watson is the grand old man of flatpick guitar. He
first came to prominence as a flatpicker in the Folk Boom of the
'60's. He plays in a clear, sparkling down-home, "ragtimey"
style. He usually plays in smaller ensembles, typically with
just one or two other guitars. He is often seen accompanied by
Jack Lawrence, who is a great picker in his own right. He most
often plays mahogany dreadnoughts.
Clarence White
Clarence White was one of the inventors of the flatpicking
style, and with The Kentucky Colonels, became one of the first
guitarists to break out of the "strictly rhythm" role of
the guitarist in most bluegrass bands. He played with great
speed, economy, cleanness, and inventiveness. He played many
guitars, but he is most associated with the famous White/Rice
herringbone mentioned above. Clarence White was run over
and killed by a drunk driver in 1973, while carrying equipment to
his car. He is sorely missed.
Jazz
Lenny
Breau
Breau is noted for his skill at self-accompaniment, and his use
of artificial harmonics. His solo playing often sounds like
two guitarists. Two of his solo albums - Five O'Clock Bells, and Mo'
Breau - are available on a single CD, on the GENES label.
Steven
King
Recording artist Steven King is an "acoustic jazz"
fingerstylist whose skills won him the National Fingerpicking
Championship at the prestigious Walnut Valley Festival, in Winfield,
Kansas. An accomplished improviser, composer, orchestrator,
arranger, and accompanist, Steven's favorite performance mode is the
acoustic guitar. He is that rare guitarist who convincingly executes
simultaneous ("true") walking bass lines, chords,
melodies, and rhythms. Steven's many recordings of original and
cover material and two instructional videos have elicited
superlatives from the guitar press, and dealers have nothing but
praise for his Taylor workshops.
Earl Klugh
Klugh uses a nylon-string acoustic to play fingerstyle
Jazz. Check out Earl Klugh Trio, Vol. 1 for a fine example of
his work.
Joe Pass
Django Reinhardt
Reinhardt was a Belgian Gypsy who became the only
European to significantly influence Jazz during the swing era.
He lost the use of his pinky and ring finger on his fretting hand
after being burned in a caravan fire when he was
eighteen. Despite the loss, Reinhardt's speed, and power
were phenomenal. Melodically, he was an arpeggio-based
player, who also posessed a highly sophisticated sense of harmony,
though he could not read or write a note of music. He
was one of the only Jazz guitarists to use a flattop acoustic
guitar. An excellent collection of his recordings is available on a
set of CDs called Djangology/USA on the Disques Swing label
(distributed in the US by DRG Records).
Other
There are invariably those
artists that can not be classified as fingerpickers or flatpickers.
They fall into the "Other" category.
Eugene Chadbourne
Eugene Chadbourne is an incredible guitarist that most
people have never heard of. His playing can be put into
several categories, but he is usually considered an avant-garde
player or a free improvisor. Possibly one of the fastest guitarists
alive, his playing can remind one, at various times, of orchestra
pieces by Stockhausen, of Jerry Reed or Albert Lee at 78 speed, of
industrial machinery, or of Looney Tunes cartoon soundtracks, and
often all within the same piece. He's a very humorous player
and uses various nonstandard techniques, including prepared guitar
(placing alligator clips, paper, and other things in the strings to
change the tone) and bowing the guitar with various items, including
other strings, balloons, and so forth.
Hans Reichel
Hans Reichel conjures some lovely, eerie, and some
downright weird sounds from his acoustic guitars that he builds
himself. One main feature of his guitars is that, instead of a
fixed bridge like on a normal flat-top, they have a moveable bridge
and and a tailpiece like on an archtop. These guitars have
frets _between_the_bridge_and_the_tailpiece_ as well as the normal
frets on the neck, so he can play the strings on both sides of the
bridge. On these guitars, he can set up some resonances that
you would swear were produced by some kind of space alien steam-harp
from Jupiter. He is definitely worth checking out, if you can
find any of his recordings, which will most often be found in the
import bins of more open-minded record stores.
Derek Bailey
Derek Bailey is a free-improvising guitarist from
England. He started out as a more-or-less straight-ahead jazz
guitarist, but in the '60's and '70's, he and several others in the
European jazz scene, including John Stevens, Evan Parker, and
others, moved into totally free, sound-based improvisation.
His playing is extremely angular and totally abandons all standard
melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic material. He makes
jawdroppingly virtuosic use of non-standard techniques, including
tone clusters, beating tones, percussive effects, high harmonics,
and wide intervals. If you like 20th-century music by people
like Xenakis, Stockhausen, Babbitt, and the like, you'll probably
like Derek Bailey. If not, well, maybe not. His main
acoustic guitar is a Martin D-18. One of the finest recordings
of his acoustic playing is the album "Duo Exchange," with
the cellist Tristan Honsinger.
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