|
Adrian Legg is a British guitarist playing both electric and acoustic guitar renowned as an all-round ecletic as well as being recognised as a significant country guitarist.
Born in Hackney, East London. Legg studied the oboe as a child but in teenage years his interest shifted to the guitar. His first three albums (Technopicker, Fretmelt, and Lost for words) were only released in the UK.
There followed a string of hugely successful albums in the 1990s, starting with Guitars and other cathedrals, Guitar for mortals, and Mrs Crowe's blue waltz. Legg's career blossomed, especially in the United States. He was voted Best Acoustic Guitarist for 4 years running (1993-6) by the readers of Guitar Player magazine. Guitar for mortals, and Mrs Crowe's blue waltz were voted best acoustic album of the years 1992 and 1993 respectively.
Adian Legg plays fingerstyle guitar, mixing an alternating-bass (musical term) style with harmonics, banjo-peg retuning (he will often play a 'chord' of harmonics on the 12th fret, eg: DADGAD, and use a tuning peg to retune the treble A to a B, giving a chord closer to G major), lead guitar style, and single or double-string bending. Often he will play a piece entirely in arpeggios similar to a classical guitar style (for example "Mrs Jack's last stand" on Guitar for mortals). He makes extensive use of altered tunings and capos.
With all this technical wizardry, it must be said that he manages to create astonishingly evocative music. The track just mentioned is a fine example, but his "Green Ballet II" bears listening to again and again as a daring, imaginative, and atmospheric piece. Occasionally his imagination lets him down when naming his pieces, leading to amusing names based on the general style of the music. (Examples are "Paddy goes to Nashville" and "Paddy in the Synagogue", tunes in which an Irish melody took on bluegrass or Jewish elements). He also seems to have a particular fondness for writing waltzes.
Some feel that Legg is at his best when playing live, and he is also an excellent anecdotalist. Some of his humor has found its way onto his albums, especially in the live material in High strung tall tales. A musician who blends many styles, as much as, for example Michael Hedges (though to entirely different effect), Adrian Legg is surely one of the great acoustic player/composers of his time.
External links
|
