Michel Dalle Ave 
is a professional
guitarist, composer, and teacher from the Bordeaux region of
France. His talent is extraordinary and his compositions are
both wonderfully refreshing and stylistically diverse. He is
equally adept at composing music in the styles of Classical guitar,
Ragtime, Fingerstyle Jazz, Bossa Nova, Celtic, and even Open
Tunings. I am extremely pleased he has allowed me to offer
his compositions on this site and I think you'll find his music both
challenging and fun to play. I also encourage you to visit his web site where you can
listen to his music in Real Audio
form or purchase
his CD (many of tunes here are from his latest
release). It should be no surprise that MIDI technology
just can't compare to an actual recording and I do encourage you to
check out his latest CD "Atico"... it's well worth
it! Also, feel free to send him an e-mail if you
have any questions about the music you find here.
Tom Thomason was born in St.
Johnsbury, Vermont, USA. He grew up in France and Belgium, then
moved back to the USA. He has been living in Sweden since 1969
and in Gothenburg since 1982.
Tom started playing the guitar in 1966
and traveled around Europe as a busker for a couple of years before
moving to Sweden. He has worked as a guitar teacher and club
musician since the early 70's and wrote tablatures for Kicking Mule
Records (Stefan Grossman's record company) for almost five
years. During that time, he had the privilege of meeting a
number of the world's leading fingerpickers. His main
influences are Stefan Grossman (of course), John Renbourn, Lasse
Johansson, Marcel Dadi, Ton van Bergeyk, Chet Atkins and Merle
Travis. To this you can add a number of the great names of
country blues.
Tom plays a variety of music including
ragtime, blues, early jazz (in the style of Chet Atkins and Merle
Travis) as well as contemporary fingerpicking guitar. He has
been arranging classic piano ragtime for the guitar for over 20
years. I am very pleased that he has decided to share his
arrangements with us. Tom and I both hope you will find
this music fun and challenging to play. Look for much more
to be added in the near future.
