The ACOUSTIC guitar virtuoso

Is the art of ACOUSTIC guitar virtuosity a thing of the past? 

There's this young guy called Marcin Patrzalek, his playing on acoustic is really impressive.

Edited by Gerinski - June 06 2023 at 07:27

Gerinski wrote: There's this young guy called Marcin Patrzalek, his playing on acoustic is really impressive. Check him out on YouTube, for some reason I can't post YT videos. He doesn't play prog though afaik, a real shame... but he has a good cover of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir and one of Metallica's Master of Puppets.

Edited by BrufordFreak - June 06 2023 at 08:18

I heard a Davy Graham instrumental on a college radio station about a month ago. Does that count?

I cannot think of any young artist whose acustic guitar work is promienent and impressive. I would really like to know any names and suggestions. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread for that. 

John Butler :
Listen to his definitive version of Ocean (13 minutes long) , he played on an amplified 11 strings guitar (he dropped the fourth I think) , an all time live favorites.

PS : This is not prog rock

Edited by mellotronwave - June 07 2023 at 07:01

I think the California Guitar Trio would immediately qualify as virtuosi on acoustic guitars.

Charlie Cawood

This is something I need to research. I haven't been paying attention to it for whatever spaced out reason, but I do listen to a lot of Anthony Phillips. I store a small boom box on the kitchen shelf and I start listening to his box sets and mainly the Private Parts and Pieces series which is beautiful music. I learned several of his pieces on a Classical nylon string and I remember that took weeks for me to master like him. The only plus I had was being classically trained as a kid because he is a monster! He has amazing control and he is out there. Long stretches with your fingering hand throughout a entire piece is difficult and it took me quite a while to master his stuff. He's amazing.

Steve Hackett continues to play acoustic. I'm not sure when he last recorded an acoustic album, but he's been incorporating acoustic guitar into his music for years. His finger picking can be complex and he's very dynamic. He sincerely plays some amazing acoustic guitar.

Steve Howe impressed me on The Yes Album. Of course that was unusual to hear someone playing acoustic guitar like he did in a Rock band in the early 70s. Possibly it was the way he incorporated aggressive high energy acoustic playing in the style of Prog Rock that blew me away. I had the first album and Time And A Word with Peter Banks and I buy The Yes Album and suddenly Steve Howe appears playing acoustic guitar like a madman. He was really high energy !! He changed Yes for sure. I'm sure there must have been other energetic style acoustic guitar playing in Rock...so it was probably just his personal expression on acoustic that captured my mind as a teenager.

I really loved the way Phil Lee played the Classical guitar on Gilgamesh albums. Beautiful player. I loved the way Pat Metheny played acoustic guitar . Watercolors, Wichita Falls and others were captivating. I haven't listened to enough new Prog releases to have any idea if acoustic guitar is still prominently set to the music. I have all the White Willow albums and Jacob is a fine acoustic player. Robert Fripp pursued acoustic playing in several projects which revolved around the concept of 5 or 6 players joining together and creating harmony counterpoint. I should become more familiar with new Prog releases . I'm curious about it and I intend to take notice .