Few musicians have absorbed as many sources and genre of music and then given it back to the world in as unique a style and talent as Tommy Emmanuel.
Emmanuel grew up in Australia playing in a family band, starting at age 6. A year later he heard Chet Atkins on the radio for the first time and his own personal yellow brick road was laid before his little feet. Today he is one of the most admired guitarists in the world.
By the time he was 20 he was was making his living as a studio musician and performing in popular bands, as proficient on the drums as the guitar. His solo career took off in the late 1980s, although he continued ensemble work as well. He now lives in Nashville, touring constantly with his trusty acoustic guitars, although his years playing in country and rock n roll groups continues to influence his amazing one-man-band arrangements.
He still gets together with brother Phil when he can. And their duets are a sight to behold and be heard. Here’s something from the days before Tommy went global.
Finally, this video gives a little insight into Emanuel’s personality as an artist and performer, before he wow’s the crowd with his version fo Amazing Grace, inspired by a Chet Atkins arrangement, but taken out beyond new horizons.
With 2 Grammy awards and 22 albums featuring his mastery of the acoustic guitar, Laurence Juber continues to expand his repertoire, resume, and renown.
From a formal musical education, Juber went on to ignite stadiums of fans with his blazing rock n roll solos, years before he demonstrated priceless vintage instruments at the Smithsonian Institute and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Laurence Juber began his career straight out of music school, playing primarily electric guitars as a member of Paul McCartney and Wings. After Wings disbanded, he moved from London to New York and ultimately Southern California, where he became one of the entertainment industry’s most sought-after studio musicians.
The varied voices of his guitars can be heard on the soundtracks of countless television programs, feature films, and albums of the top recording artists. He has even scored musical comedies for the theater. But Laurence Juber’s true musical love is solo fingerstyle acoustic guitar, something he does as well or better than anyone else on the planet.
Only a Paper Moon by Harold Arlen, arranged by LJ
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Juber’s own compositions meld jazz, blues, rock and even classical styles and technique. They are often deeply personal, like Catch, which was named after the NYC club Catch a Rising Star, where he met the other love of his life, his wife Hope.
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LJ’s arrangements for solo guitar of some of the world’s best loved music are rich with texture, capturing the spirit of the ensemble pieces with just one instrument and his two hands. His two albums of Beatles tunes and another of later McCartney compositions are very popular with Beatles fans as well as lovers of world-class guitar playing. Here is My Guitar Gently Weeps, recorded unplugged.
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LJ’s most recent studio release, entitled Under the Indigo Sky, was recorded as a mood album, conceived and intended to be enjoyed late at night when the lights are low. It includes Juber’s sublime arrangement of Cry Me a River.
When I went looking for a video of this tune, I found three good examples, each recorded with a different guitar. Juber has played various makes and styles of guitars though the decades. Since 2001 he has performed with one of his C.F. Martin signature models, of which there have been several editions, an honor no other artist has yet to receive.
They were made in mahogany, Indian rosewood, Brazilian rosewood, Madagascar rosewood (seen in the videos above) and a maple edition that included a version of the D-Tar Wave-Length pickup system that Juber uses on stage, although he blends in an internal microphone as well. And in 2011 a very limited edition was made in Hawaiian koa, expressly constructed with as light a build as possible for optimum responsiveness, using animal hide glues throughout.
So here are three versions of Cry Me a River, preformed on a mahogany Juber model, followed by Brazilian rosewood, and the hide glue Koa edition. Each has an Adirondack spruce top. Although the mix between pickup, mic, and PA varies, the personality of the individual guitar and tonal coloring from each tonewood comes through very nicely.
In memory of the late Stan Jay, we feature one of his all-time favorite guitarists, the fingerstyle master, Pierre Bensusan.
May those in need of solace, find peace of mind and spirit in this evocative and moving music.
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Algeria was still a French colony when Pierre Bensusan was born there in 1957. At the age of 17 he signed a recording contract in France, which resulted in Près de Paris, which went on to win the Grand Prix du Disque at the Festival at Montreux. He has continued recording and performing ever since. And in 2013 he released a three-disc live album entitled Encore. And while earlier recordings and tours have included the use of various effects peddles to extend the sound of his exploratory music, he shows just how transporting his compositions can be when played on an acoustic guitar with no amplification or electronics what so ever. Here is The Alchemist.website
His mutual admiration shared with Michael Hedges resulted in the Hedges composition Bensusan, on the record Ariel Boundaries. After Hedges died in an automobile accident, Pierre Bensusan responded So Long Michael.
Stan Jay, founder of Mandolin Brothers on Staten Island, died today after a long fight with a rare form of Lymphoma. He was 71.
A long time friend of mine, and of countless lovers of fine stringed instruments, Stan was a radiant being who accurately proclaimed the focus of his life’s work as a “dream fulfillment center.” He will be missed forever.
Stan Jay, center, staff and family
It is very sad news. Stan had recently been moved from the hospital to a nursing home and reports from the family seemed encouraging. So I had hoped for the best.
He spent his life making people very, very happy. And many of them were musicians who went out and made countless others very, very happy.
I was unaware of Stan’s life had come to an end, as I attended the gala benefit dinner for the New York Youth Symphony this evening in Manhattan.
The Jazz orchestra arm of the organization performed before and after dinner. The guitarist for this night of big band jazz was playing a Gibson with a double cutaway, a 336, but maybe a 335. Stan would have known at first sight.
As ever it was inspiring to hear such amazing music from teenagers who are yet years away from the full potential that shall be revealed in their adult careers. And it is of some comfort to know that the future of great music is in such good, capable hands, now that one who so dedicated themselves to music is no longer here to play his part and the gift of music as he had with all those grateful recipients of his time, enthusiasm, wisdom and talents.
I bought my first new guitar from Stan Jay. And the most recent guitar that I bought from a shop, a custom Martin OM, was also sold to me by Stan.
The guitar I grew up playing was given to me by my brother. It was an Asian knock off of a Martin 000-18, won shooting pool. But at Mandolin Brothers I could walk amongst a forest of “real” guitars, and dream away entire Saturdays playing Martin, Collings, Santa Cruz, Gibson, Taylor, Gretch, Goodall, Weissenborn, D’Angelico and many more.
I remember clearly how he allowed me to haunt the shop for months, with that “someday I’ll afford one of these” look in my eyes. And one day I came in and bought a brand new Martin Custom 15, the first of many purchases from Mandolin Brothers.
“Play anything you want!” is all he would say to shy newcomers used to being scolded if they dared pick up a guitar without a shopkeeper’s permission. And if the register was slow, Stan would put on his thumb pick and play along with his customers, that squinty-eyed grin and sly chuckle accompanying every joke, pun, or clever remark, often arising from his own quick, jovial sense of humor.
I can see his Cheshire cat grin right now, as the second or third implication of some clever turn of words sends him into deeply satisfying chuckles of mirth and his eyes glitter with tears.
I went on to hone my guitar reviewing at Mandolin Brothers, where I would indeed play anything I wanted, and then would write up details of various guitars for the readers of Acoustic Guitar Magazine’s on-line forum, and eventually the Unofficial Martin Guitar forum. In later years, when I was unable to get out to Mandolin Brothers as often as I once did, I would encourage anyone shopping for guitars to get out to Stan’s, where the selection and prices are the best in New York City.
For the past dozen Augusts, Mandolin Brothers became an annual stop for pilgrims returning from Martinfest in Pennsylvania, both local residents and those heading to various airports on their way home. If they thought they had their fill of playing great guitars, or their hands too sore after marathon Martinfest jam sessions, five minutes in that dream fulfillment center brought rejuvenation and delight, and often yet another guitar purchase. Stan would always take time out to hear the latest news, share his latest joke, and play a tune or two.
I had to miss the August trip this year, so it has been some months since I had last seen Stan, at the reception for the early American guitar exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he looked his old self. He had regained a lot of weight that had been noticeably lost during his earlier struggle with MSL.
It has been my sincere hope that it was all behind him now. It turns out it had come out of remission, and Stan lost the fight earlier today.
Stan Jay certainly did his part and more to make the world a better place and those of us who were allowed to know him will remain enriched by the privilege.
The pioneer of guitar playing with the most influence upon fingerstyle is Merle Travis.
In fact, long before the term fingerstyle became popular, the technique where the thumb plays an alternating pattern on the bass strings while melody and harmony are played in upper register was known as “Travis picking.”
Guitarists from Phil Ochs to Leo Kotte, Paul Simon and James Taylor to John Mayer and Bonnie Raitt, Mary Flowers to David Lindley all owe a great deal to the boy from Kentucky who took a picking style rooted in Black blues music and expanded it to include elements from ragtime, Western swing, jazz, offering a rich tapestry of tones deceptively subtle in its complexity.
Here he is circa 1951 playing one of his most well known compositions, on his equally famous Martin D-28, which he had altered to include a neck based on the electric guitar that he designed and had built for him by Paul Bigsby in 1948.
The direct lineage leading to Merle Travis includes fingerpickers like Blind Blake, as well as local musicians from his old Kentucky home. The direct lineage of Travis pickers that followed include luminaries such as Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed. But while such players and their own musical disciples use a similar syncopation, they tend to play a single bass note on the 1 and 3 beat, where Travis often played two bass strings at the same time. And where most fingerstyle players use two or three, and sometimes four fingers to play above the bass line, Travis used only his index finger to create such intricate arrangements.
This video is from 17 years later and gives a clearer view of his typical picking style.
Merle Travis was equally at home on electric guitars, favoring large Gibson hollow body models like the Super 400, before and after his solid body Bigsby period. And like George Barnes before him, he had a signature model built by Carlo Greco at Guild Guitars during the 1960s, known as the Merle Travis Soloist. And like the Barnes model, only a handful was ever made.
Here he is with his son Thom Bresh pretending he hadn’t seen or played Cannonball Rag before.
Bresh has carried on his father’s legacy, while establishing his own reputation as a world-class guitarists. He will get his own Guitarist of the Week in due time.
Finally, here is Merle Travis and Chet Atkins together. No video, but a couple of old hands doing what they do best, play guitar.
Sometimes it seems barely a year since Michael Hedges died, back in 1997, untimely failing to navigate the curve of a mountain road near his California home.
His music is just so alive, timeless, and perhaps even from another time if not another dimension.
Michael Hedges was an enormous influence and inspiration who opened vistas of possibility for guitarists everywhere. Also, he forever ended the argument that 14-fret dreadnoughts like his 1971 Martin D-28 were only for Country Western and Bluegrass.
They are also for boogieing…
And for trips to inner-space, as Ariel Boundaries is my all-time favorite piece of music to listen to while melting away my cares in a steaming hot bath.
Here he is playing Bach on his vintage harp guitar.
Michael Hedges also sang and did interesting covers of popular songs by artists he admired. And here for those who want more, is a full public performance, the very last one captured on video before he passed away too young and far too soon.
Michael Hedges, an original, often copied but never replaced.
Leo Kottke popularized fingerstyle acoustic guitar like no one else.
Like his contemporaries John Fahey and Jorma Kaukaunan, he turned on the Woodstock generation to wonders of hardcore fingerpicking, and for many years Kottke was named Folk Guitarist of the Year repeatedly by Rolling Stone Magazine’s readers poll.
Born in Athens, Georgia on September 11, 1945, at 69 years of age the “great big boy” continues to delight audiences through his recordings, broadcast appearances, and live concerts.
His innovative style of fingerpicking on 6 and 12-string guitar shows the influence of Mississippi John Hurt and Merle Travis, but mostly in how it differs, and how it employs an expanded use of harmony, counterpoint and polyphony.
Hallmarks of his style include using his forefinger in tandem with his thumb to create kinetic bass parts, and a tendency to avoid using the highest treble string, except when necessary, where as most traditional fingerstylists rely on it as the primary source of the melody.
Leo Kottke is also known for his engaging stories, and his baritone singing voice, even if he only uses it now and again. Together with his instrumental compositions they have earned him many awards over the years, including being voted Folk Musician of the Year by Rolling Stone’s readers poll several years in row.
One Man has a review published in The ToneQuest Report.
A respected esoteric journal read by hardcore gearheads like my hero David Lindley, the ToneQuest Report is normally it is all about electric guitars but they dedicated half their September issue to none other than C.F. Martin.
There’s an article about wood featuring Martin’s Dick Boak and Linda-Davis Wallen, an address by the late C.F. Martin III about tone, and a review by me of the Martin CEO-7.
The issue came out yesterday for subscribers, and may be purchased by non-subscribers at their website:
A reader asks for specifics about Martin wood grading.
I’ve seen it written “higher grade rosewood and spruce. But Martin does their grading solely on looks” on your website and other places.
How do you know this is the what Martin does? How many grades of wood does Martin use?
Does it start with the Road Series being the lowest grade, then 16 series is next, then 18/28, then 35, and the 40+ gets the top grade of woods?
I read somewhere that the HD-28 had a better top than a D-28. is that correct?
Spoon writes:
It is true Martin only grades wood based on how it looks. However, the debate will remain forever as to whether visual appearance can accurately suggest what a piece of wood will sound like once it is on a guitar.
There are many who believe that perfectly quartersawn wood is not only a safer bet when it comes to long-term strength and stability, but that it is also more resonant or simply “sounds better” than flat sawn wood. Others dismiss such claims based on their own experience. And the same can be said for other visual clues from cross silking or bearclaw or haselfichte markings in spruce to quilting and other exotic figuring in tonewood like mahogany or maple.
When it comes to customer orders at Martin, for instance from the Custom Shop, wood like Madagascar rosewood used for back and sides or Adirondack spruce used for tops, receives a designation of either “Standard” or “Premium.”
According to one veteran employee deep in Martin wood lore, “Premium means we sort through all the available 7 – 8 tops to pick out the best.”
A number grade like 7 or 8 is part of the internal grading system. There are usually two grades of wood for back and sides, and eight grades for spruce tops…
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