The ACOUSTIC guitar virtuoso

^ Thank you, Greg! A modern artist!

Jacob Schoolcraft wrote: 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.

Paco de Lucia.

If it's just acoustic guitarists. prog or no...there's Tommy Emmanuel, Kent Nishimura, Adrian Bellue (not Belew of KC), Daniel Padim.

Francis Lickerish ..ex founding member of The Enid is a fine player. He plays Lute beautifully. The early Enid albums were outstanding. I also enjoy later releases like Tripping The Light Fantastic, White Goddess, and Invicta. The first 4 albums are the most magical though and are Classical Rock at its best.

Michael Dunford added interesting acoustic work to Renaissance. He was a solid writer and colored albums like Turn Of The Cards and Ashes Are Burning.

Acoustic guitar can add such a dimension to Progressive Rock and sometimes in a simplistic way. One example is on Tangerine Dream Force Majeure. A piece titled "Cloudburst Flight" features acoustic guitar played by Edgar Froese with simplicity that is very creative and affective to the music..and it actually has similarities to Andrew Latimer acoustic playing with Camel..and Force Majeure has a Progressive Rock style combined with an Electronic Music style . It could also be attributed to having Klaus Krieger on drums.

French Prog bands Pulsar and Halloween incorporate acoustic playing which is hauntingly beautiful. The classical guitar playing on Halloween Merlin is intriguing.

^I appreciate your thoughtful, time-committed response, "Jacob." Five of the seven artists you mention were monsters of the instrument. (I don't know Phil Lee or Peter Banks' work, though I am familiar with the albums to which you refer.) The two that I feel sad that you overlooked are Jan Akkerman and John McLaughlin.

Edited by BrufordFreak - June 07 2023 at 20:26

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 .

Charlie Cawood

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