Guitar Player 26th Annual Readers

Guitar Player 26th Annual Readers' Poll for best acoustic fingerstyle announced in the January '96 issue:

"For the third year running Adrian Legg wafts to the top by an almost embarrassing margin, garnering more votes than all his competitors combined....." The 25th Annual Guitar Player Readers PollThe Recordings

BEST OVERALL GUITAR RECORDING

Adrian Legg's Wine, Women & Waltz finished a comfortable first ahead of Joe Satriani's Time Machine compilation and Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream. Like last year's Return Of The Hellecasters upset, it's a remarkable development in a category perennially dominated by rock and fusion recordings. In fact, it's only the second victory for a (mostly) acoustic album in the 23 years this category has existed (the John McLaughlin/Al Di Meola/Paco de Lucia collaboration Friday Night In San Francisco was the '81 winner). Congratulations, Adrian!

BEST ACOUSTIC FINGERSTYLE GUITARIST

Adrian Legg recaps last year's landslide victory, garnering more votes than all his competitors combined. Phil Keaggy moved up to second place from last year's third, while Best Pickstyle winner Richard Thompson and pickless Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits tied for third.

ADRIAN LEGG

For Adrian Legg, Joe Pass' death overshadowed the musical year. "It was a bombshell," he intones. "I remember working years ago at Ivor Mairants' Musicentre in London, and Joe came in once to try Ivor's D'Aquisto. I sat three feet from him for an hour, and so much music poured out. I think that was the first time I listened to a really good guitarist and found it inspiring rather than intimidating. It wasn't about ego or anything like that, just perfectly played music. This year I had a sudden realization of my age and other people's mortality."

On a brighter note, Adrian has been gratified to see more and more young players turning out at his gigs. "A lot of these young players have been so focused on the linear aspects of playing that they're completely dazzled by the simplest bit of picking", he notes. "they're really open." As usual, Adrian's listening has dominated by non-guitar classical recordings. "There was the wonderful Itzhak Perlman version of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto", he sighs, "and I've still got a hangover from the sublime Brahms German Requiem with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic." Meanwhile, Legg confesses he's apprehensive about how his new album, High Strung Tall Tales, will be received: "I'm completely paranoid. I don't know what people will think, and I don't know how to follow it!"