Adrian Legg Reviews

Reviews

Waiting for a Dancer

For me, Waiting for a Dancer has been a breathtaking introduction to Adrian Legg and his music. It seems that Legg has won just about every award around for acoustic fingerstyle guitar and the descriptive "best acoustic fingerstyle guitarist" seems to follow his name wherever he goes. I am always skeptical of the raving that follows an artist, until I experience them firsthand. After listening to Waiting for a Dancer and attending one of Legg's guitar clinics, count me in as another listener in awe. Legg certainly couldn't be described as a "purist" and his style and this CD are not for people who cringe at the thought of an "electric" acoustic guitar and effects. Legg takes full advantage of the electronic nature of his Ovation guitars and, by doing so, creates an expansive musical palette that is refreshing to the ear.

Legg's technique and grasp of the technical aspect of the guitar and its sound is mindboggling. However, he is not all flash and speed without substance. Legg successfully blends his emotional ideas with technical prowess in his latest CD.

My immediate favorites on this CD were the more somber and dissonant pieces -- L'Amour Manque and Carolina Sunday Waltz. Legg uses a right-hand banjo roll to obtain an effect that to my classical ear sounded like tremolo, reminding me of Tarrega's Recuredos De La Alhambra. With the melody ringing over the full, rolling harmonies, it simply amazes me that he can get this effect without any sort of "rest strokes" (apoyando).

Legg displays amazing dexterity and lightning-speed runs in Ragged Nail and Widdershins, the latter ending with a slew of slurs and a graceful, slow glissando. Although it's hard to distinguish on the CD, if you see Legg perform some of these pieces, he actually changes tuning without missing a beat in the middle of the song by physically dropping strings a whole step down and then bringing them back, all within what seems like a split second. With this technique, he achieves a sound similar to a bend, but with a clearer tone and speed than could be accomplished with bending.

Bayou Belles features some beautiful harmonic work in which the listener can hear a bell-choir effect that complements the smooth, rolling harmonies following the melody line. Son of Kiss Curl displays an unmistakable rock edge with a beginning full of power chords.

The production on Waiting for a Dancer is very crisp and clean. The only complaint I have of the CD is that although the moods and "loudness" of the songs vary, I prefer a larger range of dynamics within particular pieces. I enjoy the ebb-and-flow of the crescendos and tacit spaces that occur on some recordings, such as Michael Hedges' Oracle, which I found lacking on this CD.

For anyone who loves to listen to the guitar speak through a guitarist with incredible technique and a little technical wizardry, then Waiting for a Dancer will be a welcome addition to your collection.

Complete listing of songs:
(Before the 1st track is a hidden live track)
* Ragged Nail
* L'Amour Mangue
* Bayou Belles
* Son of Kiss Curl
* Kalahari Blues
* New Bourgeoisie

* Widdershins
* Cuckoo Shuffle
* Carolina Sunday Waltz
* Designer Guitar
* Waiting for a Dancer

Edited by David Schultz

Interview and Article by Chris Fetters for What's Up:

The Introductions

Adrian,

My name is Chris Fetters, and I write for a bi-monthly arts and entertainment magazine in Walla Walla, Washington called 'What's Up', and I was interested in asking you a few questions for an upcoming article. This article will run in conjunction with your show at Whitman College on October 1st. I would have tried to call, but figured that it would be extremely hard to get in touch with you, especially considering the time differences involved. I also work for Jim McGuinn at Hot Poop! and have seen you every time you hve played in Walla Walla, and have come away from each performance enthralled by your wonderful display of guitar work and story-telling.

The Questions and Answers

Chris: Do you remember anything from past Walla Walla performances?

Adrian: I remember the first journey - it was one of my first really long ones. I drove straight from Omaha Nebraska, headed north to pick up I-90, and hammered across South Dakota, through Wyoming and Montana into Idaho. I don't remember the road to Walla Walla, but I think from the looking at the map it might have been route 12 from Missoula . By that time I was pretty beaten up, but I still kick myself for not photographing a sign on it which warned of bends for something like ninety miles. It was really curvy, and ran alongside a river. I wish I'd had time to stop for a while, but that's the story of a lot of America for me- there are times when I have to rush through paradise it seems.
Someone told me another "difference" between us = an American thinks a hundred years is a long time, and an Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way. I'm changing quite quickly.

Chris: How extensive is this current US tour?

Adrian: I'm not sure. They don't tell me too much in case I panic. At the moment I know it will run until at least Novemer 2nd, takes in most of the west coast, cuts across via Denver, Kansas City and Minneapolis to New York, Philly and Connecticut, from where I head down to the Carolinas. If I'm really lucky, I might get a day or two off in Florida to toast my toes and swim in the Gulf.

Chris: How has your new album been received, both in the US and in England?

Adrian: Americans have been very supportive of what I do ever since I came here - you are very gracious to visitors - and the press on this album has been wonderful. There has been some good press in England, but I don't work there nowdays - Ithink the guitar is primarily an American concern. If you think about it, it's your national instrument - pretty much every part of your society has had some involvement with it, and the steel string was born and grew up in America. It has been a vehicle for most aspects of your culture - black, white, urban, rural.
I guess the only Americans who haven't had much use for it have been Chinese ones, who come with a pretty solid culture of their own already. Something typically English would be brass bands for many people, or dismally tragic, depressing a capella songs about sunken ships and drowned lovers, or lovers parted by the gallows. We northern Europeans get
Seasonally Affected Disorder a lot and have been known to wallow in it....

Chris: Are you writing a book of your stories any time soon?

Adrian: I'm not sure how that might work - I have wondered. I've just written and recorded a whole lot more for All Things Considered, and have been diverted by photography and a music book project. It's actually time I paid some attention to the guitar :-)

Chris: Explain some of the major differences between touring in the states as opposed to England.

Adrian: Mileage obviously, and you are more geared up for travellers. Away from the north-east, roads are easier, and hotels are pretty easy until you get into the southwest - then they can be a bit thin on the ground.Your cops are extraordinary. Anybody would think you don't have any crime the way they
hang around on the freeways harassing motorists.Ohio and Pennsylvania are unbelievable. Most of us visitors think it's just a completely corrupt piece of civic banditry.

Chris: Will you incorporate singing, either on albums or live?

Adrian: I have promised that I won't. Nobody deserves that...

Chris: Would you ever consider playing shows with a rhythm section?

Adrian: Why ? I don't think I can afford it anyway... three or more extra hotel rooms/plane tickets/Denny's omelettes - a bus instead of a car, and arguments over whether or not I get to climb a mountain or a waterfall and photograph it when I feel like it, or whining because I want to sleep in a truck-stop and drive to the Canyon for dawn....more gear, longer sound-checks, yawning bass players who heard the story already... it doesn't look promising to me.

Chris: Have you ever considered moving to the States to travel around and play full-time? It sounds as if most of your touring is here.

Adrian:
I'd love to, BUT
1. Your goverment probably wouldn't let me
2. If they did, I'd have to pay for Social Security without being eligible for it. I already pay US tax.
3. I don't think I could afford the health care on top of everyone else's dole.

Chris: How exactly did you come to play guitar, especially, as you pointed out, the guitar is more of an American concern?

Adrian: I look funny - you know, glasses, round face - so I couldn't just stand around looking handsome. If I wanted to mate, I had to think of something else...The guitar worked fine - I'm still happy with the woman I married, and my kids have kids.

Chris: What differences have you found between Red House and Relativity...

Adrian: It is possible to have a more consistent and personal relationship with Red House. Some guys at Relativity were wonderful, but they left and the company changed.

Chris:
...other than touring with Metalheads?

Adrian: The "metalheads" have been great company, have been supportive, and I had a good time touring with them. I don't believe we should all hide in our separate playgrounds, I believe we should mix and enjoy each other's talents. The acoustic in particular suffers from an excess of purity and among some people that has become hypocritical and negative. But then I'm not sure just how "acoustic" I am anymore.

Chris: Given you perform in a concert hall when you play in Walla Walla, what kind of venue do you prefer to play in? I do remember you incorporated playing in bars into your stories, but I don't remember if it was positive or negative

Adrian: I like to play where people can be comfortable; can hear; don't have to stay up late; don't get stinky clothes and screwed up lungs from cigarette smoke and don't have drunks messing up what they paid for. If you can run a bar that well, I'll play it, but it must have a stereo p.a. a decent
dressing room, decaf. coffee with cream and honey, and clean toilets.

The Article

Adrian Legg - A Legg Up On The Competition

Imagine you are a guitar player. Actually quite a good guitar player, but for some reason you suffer from name recognition. You record for a company that is known for its bone-crunchingly loud bands and everytime your company wants to promote you on a tour, they stick you as the front man for a band that has literally drowned themselves in glitter and hairspray. Not a promising career as far as these things go. But every once in a while, someone notices you amongst the big hair and power chords, and is blown away by your technique and style. They will say something like, "I'm trying to find out who opened for the G3 tour in Boston at the Orpheum. He was slightly stocky, shaved head, glasses, British accent, and kept turning his tuners to adjust pitch while playing...Amazing! Any help would be appreciated."
The music is not necessarily 'new-age', and it really isn't folk. It's original compositions performed with whirlwind precision and dexterity, almost unheard of in this country, short of guitar geniuses like Ry Cooder. Sometimes they seem to be almost classical in scope, others seem to wander to faraway places and times. Melody and harmony weave in and out like a fine crochet rug. Hands race across the guitar like hamsters running for a carrot on a treadmill, hitting run after run after impossible run of blurried notes. Funny, you get compliments like, "Guitar fanatics will drool over his zen-like stamina as well as his sheer mastery of reels, jigs, and breakdowns, all executed with flawless, mind-boggling technique,", but when people go to their local record store to buy your albums, the brain goes numb, and that name-recognition problem kicks in again. They leave the record store with a fist-full of Leo Kottke albums!
Such is the hard-luck life of Adrian Legg, guitarist to the stars. The Milky Way, that is. Don't feel sorry for Legg, however. He is doing just fine, thank you. And he even has a sense of humor about it. As he said in a recent on-line interview about learning guitar, "I look funny - you know, glasses, round face - so I couldn't just stand around looking handsome. If I wanted to mate, I had to think of something else... The guitar worked fine - I'm still happy with the woman I married, and my kids have kids." And he has a bunch of unbelievable albums to boot.
He won Guitar Player 26th Annual Readers' Poll for best acoustic fingerstyle, announced in the January '96 issue. They said, "For the third year running Adrian Legg wafts to the top by an almost embarrassing margin, garnering more votes than all his competitors combined....." He has beaten Kottke (a big fan of Legg's by the way), and Eric Clapton along the way, a feat few others can share. He just moved from Relativity Records, a company best known for it's hard-rock guitarists, like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani to Red House, a subsidiary label of the well-known Windham Hill Records. When asked of his association with the 'metalheads', Legg says, "The 'metalheads' have been great company, have been supportive, and I had a good time touring with them. I don't believe we should all hide in our separate playgrounds. I believe we should mix and enjoy each other's talents. The acoustic in particular suffers from an excess of purity among some people that has become hypocritical and negative. But then I'm not sure just how "acoustic" I am anymore. It is possible to have a more consistent and personal relationship with Red House. Some guys at Relativity were wonderful, but they left, and the company was never the same."
A Legg performance is more than just a brilliant musician plying his musical wares. He is a master storyteller, bordering on stand-up comedy, which I'm sure he would refute, only because he sits down. He has contributed numerous stories for National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and always uses personal anecdotes to pepper his performances. When asked about his last trip to Walla Walla, Legg recalls, " I remember the first journey - it was one of my first really long ones. I drove straight from Omaha Nebraska, headed north to pick up I-90, and hammered across South Dakota, through Wyoming and Montana into Idaho. I don't remember the road to Walla Walla, but I think from the looking at the map it might have been route 12 from Missoula. By that time I was pretty beaten up, but I still kick myself for not photographing a sign on it which warned of bends for something like ninety miles. It was really curvy, and ran alongside a river. I wish I'd had time to stop for a while, but that's the story of a lot of America for me." Since he tours primarily in the United States, the question of Legg becoming a full-time resident comes up, but is quickly dismissed. "I'd love to, but, 1) Your goverment probably wouldn't let me. 2) If they did, I'd have to pay for Social Security without being eligible for it. I already pay US tax. 3) I don't think I could afford the health care on top of everyone else's dole."
Obviously we're not talking about your mother's rock star here. A man with an infinite amount of intelligence and an equal sense of humor, Legg uses all of his faculties to create an experience that is as close to pure art as you are likely to encounter. As Legg is want to point out, "I think the guitar is primarily an American concern. If you think about it, it's your national instrument - pretty much every part of your society has had some involvement with it, and the steel string was born and grew up in America. It has been a vehicle for most aspects of your culture - black, white, urban, rural." I guess we can thank the Queen we have the opportunity to experience the greatest British import since Newcastle Brown Ale - guitarist/storyteller Adrian Legg. Legg will be performing at Catherine Chism Hall on the Whitman College campus, Wednesday, October 1st.

AUDIO - The Equipment Authority
APRIL 1995 - VOL. 79, NO. 4

High Strung Tall Tales
Adrian Legg,
RELATIVITY 88561-1224-2, 69:40
Sound: A, Performance: A

After a series of acclaimed recordings that highlighted his phenomenal fingerstyle technique on acoustic guitar, Adrian Legg has finally released one that captures his wry wit as well.

We can still marvel at the British virtuoso's machine-like right-hand technique, the miraculous hammer-ons and pull-offs, the flowing eloquence, and the creative use of alternate tunings. But with High Strung Tall Tales, we also get to hear the between song patter that is a staple of Legg's concert performances.

A kind of cross between Robert Fripp and Garrison Keillor, Legg spins engaging tall tales on nine tracks that were recorded live. The remaining 11 selections are studio recordings that run a stylistic gamut from lilting ("The Cool Cajun") and strangely psychedelic ("Naive II") to a tongue-in-cheek version of "Silent Night."

Guitar fanatics will drool over Legg's zen-like stamina on the "High Strung Suite" as well as his sheer mastery of reels, jigs, and breakdowns, all executed with flawless, mind-boggling technique.
But the humanity of this charming troubadour is really revealed in his humorous, extended intros to the live tunes.

Bill Milkowski