Guitarist of the Decade: Adrian Legg February 22, 2013

With his unique, dynamic amalgam of acoustic and electric guitar over four decades, British guitar maestro Adrian Legg brings his USA Tour to the Bay Area.

In self-describing his music, Legg says, "I'm a collision between European classicism and the American guitar. I make up tunes and play them on the guitar. On a good day people give me money for it. That's it: the beginning and end there, and all that's in between."

Well, yes, but in so doing, he has won numerous awards and accolades. Readers of the U.K.'s Guitarist magazine voted him Acoustic Guitarist of the Decade. According to Music Week, "To say Legg plays a good guitar is like saying Menuhin saws a fine fiddle. This man is ridiculously talented." And Acoustic Guitar notes that "the guitar is the most versatile instrument in the world, and nobody demonstrates this better than Adrian Legg."

In addition to composing and performing, Legg is known for his commentaries on the popular National Public Radio program "All Things Considered," as well as articles for major guitar publications, several books, and an impressive 11 album discography.

But for Legg, "Playing live is the whole point...Everyone makes a journey, an effort; we all come together - me, the audience, the people who run the venue - This is where the music lives."

Born in a Salvation Army hospital in the London's East End, Adrian was choirboy, piano and violin student, and school oboist. But on the sly, he "cobbled together his own jerry-rigged guitars, or rather odd stringed instruments...using scraps from school woodworking class, fret wire, and junk metal its retrieved from the local bus depot." And the rest, as they say...

Official Website: http://www.firehousearts.org