Modern Fingerstyle Players
Walter Strauss – Ishi
One of the fascinating things about acoustic fingerstyle guitar is the variety of individual styles possible. For this reason I created the ‘Fingerstyle at FARwest 2009–Six Approaches‘ video, which captures intimate performances by six different fingerstyle players filmed at the the annual Folk Alliance Region West (FAR-West) last November. Of the six guitarists presented, Walter [...]
Garrin Benfield – Unbound
I’ve known San Francisco based singer-songwriter Garrin Benfield for some time. In the mid ‘oughties’ (this century has turned out sucky for decade names so far,) we were booked on the same bill at a local SF acoustic music showcase night. At the end of the evening, Garrin and I jumped onstage for an impromptu [...]
Shaun Cromwell-The Rise and the Fall of It All
One of the guitarists I was lucky enough to meet at the Folk Alliance Region West (FAR-West) conference is Shaun Cromwell. I’ve posted the clip of Shaun playing his very cool song “The Rise and the Fall of It All” to my YouTube page.
Shaun was a featured performer at the FAR-West conference, and his show proved to be one of the most enjoyable for someone like me, who loves good songwriting combined with great fingerpicking.
Duck Baker–Thumbs of Fury
Since I often talk about right hand technique on this Blog, you might think ‘Thumbs of Fury’ refers to the right hand thumb.* Yes, the fingerpicker’s Jedi force surely resides in the right hand thumb, but in the case of long-time fingerstyle master Duck Baker, there’s a lot going on with the left hand thumb. [...]
Duck Baker-Modern Fingerstyle for the Ages
I’m pretty much obsessed with guitar technique, especially fingerstyle, so I was excited to get a chance to hear the legendary Duck Baker perform and catch one of his teaching workshops.
Duck Baker jumped on the instrumental guitar circuit in the early 1970s, at a time when the glow was still warm on the 1960s heyday [...]
