Stefan Grossman is a Berkley-area fingerstyle guitarist, longtime friend of the legendary John Fahey, student of the ragtime blues master Rev. Gary Davis, and staple of the American and European folk blues revival of the sixties. He is better known as a pedagogue than as a performer, having published a hugely successful series of instructional LPs on how to play fingerstyle blues guitar (complete with tunings and tablature) through his label, Kicking Mule Records. His knowledge of the craft behind the blues and ragtime he emulates shows itself vivdly on this record. He's much less prone to lockstep arpeggiation and repetitive fingerings than the Takoma school of fingerpicking; his arrangements are more fully polyphonic, with distinct bass, tenor and alto voices.
A word of warning: Grossman has apparently often fallen prey to Davey Graham Disease - that is, the delusion that people want to hear him sing while he's playing guitar. While this album is entirely instrumental and quite solid, other albums of his I've checked out are a bit embarrassing. Though I can't claim to have explored his whole discography, my sense is this record is as good as it gets.
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thank you very much
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