Search - Various Artists :: Guitar Workshop, Vol. 1

THE acoustic guitar reference album

10/26/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The second most amazing thing about this album is the technical standard of the playing. The first most amazing thing is that unless you're their Mom, I bet you never heard of any of these players. These must be the best guitar players no one ever heard of. These guys don't just use wonderful alternative tunings, they actually swap between them during songs! Yet for all the technicality this is still a very musical collection. I first heard this album sometime soon after it was first released in 1973. I wore out the tape I made and have been looking for it ever since. It's a very understated recording of the best acoustic guitar players who were doing the London club scene when everyone else was into Bowie or T.Rex.There's everything here; blusey epics like Willy Barret's "Hair Across The Frets", ballads such as Davey Murrell's "Kenneth's Riverbank Song" and technical and musical feats from Chris Hardy and Philip John Lee. See, I told you you never heard of them.On the original vinyl recording I remember the songs being interspersed with snippets of discussions between the players and the engineers such as. "What's this one called"? "Oh. Erm, it's.... 'Lonliness Of The Long Distance Acoustic Guitar Player'" "Ha Ha. Excellent. OK then" ....click of tape starting. It's a shame the CD producers decided to leave out these little links which somehow gave a sense of being there. Fortunately they still included the original sleeve notes.Anyway, this is still a fun album if you are a fan of acoustic guitar. As a guitar freak schoolboy growing up in London, I wanted to be these guys. Twenty plus years later as a guitar freak engineer in Silicon valley, I still do."