Adrian Legg
Encyclopedia
Adrian Legg is an English guitar player who has been called "impossible to categorize". He plays custom guitars that are a hybrid of electric
and acoustic
, and his fingerstyle
picking technique has been acknowledged by the readers of Guitar Player
who voted Legg the "best acoustic fingerstyle" player four years in a row (1993–1996).
From his early start as a bench technician customising electric guitars, Legg moved into guitar instruction, publishing books and videos on guitar technique. In 1996 and 1997, Legg shared the stage with acclaimed guitar experts Joe Satriani
, Eric Johnson
and Steve Vai
as part of the G3 tour
. Vai called Legg "Uncle Adrian" and Satriani said of Legg's musicianship "He's simply the best acoustic guitar player I've ever heard. I don't know anyone else who can create such a cascade of beautiful notes... Adrian plays like he's got hammers for fingers."
, east London. He studied the oboe
as a child but in teenage years his interest shifted to the guitar
.
In the early 1970s, Legg won both the composition and performance sections of a competition run by the now defunct Guitar magazine, published by Musical New Services of Denmark Street, which led to his being asked to contribute articles to the magazine. From then on, his technical flair produced a stream of articles in UK music press in the 1970s and early 1980s, culminating in the Kaye and Ward book "Customising Your Electric Guitar", 1981. He spent from 1979 to 1981 as a technician at Rose Morris Ltd., who then handled Marshall amplification, Ovation Guitar
and Takamine Guitars
, and designed original and well-reviewed passive circuits for the then relaunched Vox guitars. In 1990, he was involved in the prototyping and launch of the highly successful Trace Acoustic amplifiers, and continues to maintain technical relationships with the musical instrument industry.
From a 1983 promotional flyer (Technopickers) from Spindrift Records; Having demonstrated Ovation guitar for a number of years and with sessions with Tom Robinson, a tour with Richard Thompson and appearing on Radio One's In Concert programme all have helped established Adrian.
and toured with Richard Thompson, David Lindley, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson and as part of the G3 Tour featuring Satriani, Johnson and Favored Nations
founder Steve Vai
. For G3, Legg served as an opening act in 1996 and a headlining act in 1997. An infrequent singer, Legg helped with vocal duties on the collaborative G3 performance of Red House
by Jimi Hendrix
.
He's also shared the wealth of his talent and experience with teaching DVDs, videos and books. In recent years, he has also been a commentator-at-large for National Public Radio's "All Things Considered", and even more recently, regular listeners have heard his guitar versions of the show's theme music.
, mixing an alternating-bass style with harmonics, banjo-peg retuning and single or double-string bending. Often he will play a piece entirely in arpeggios similar to a classical guitar
style. He makes extensive use of altered tunings and capo
s.
Legg has said that his true home is onstage. "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 – to share this wonderful, universal, human emotional interaction. This is where music lives."
A significant part of a performance by Legg is the wryly funny storytelling patter he uses between songs. His distinctive wit is also in written evidence everywhere from his liner notes to his tablature books.
Legg included the use of modeling technology and MIDI for fingerstyle guitar on his 2004 album Inheritance, which features extensive use of guitar synthesisers and modeled guitar sounds. This stands in contrast to the more acoustic sound of Guitar Bones.
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
and acoustic
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
, and his fingerstyle
Fingerstyle guitar
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking ....
picking technique has been acknowledged by the readers of Guitar Player
Guitar Player
Guitar Player is a popular magazine for guitarists founded in 1967. It contains articles, interviews, reviews and lessons of an eclectic collection of artists, genres and products. It has been in print since the late 1960s and during the 1980s, under editor Tom Wheeler, the publication was...
who voted Legg the "best acoustic fingerstyle" player four years in a row (1993–1996).
From his early start as a bench technician customising electric guitars, Legg moved into guitar instruction, publishing books and videos on guitar technique. In 1996 and 1997, Legg shared the stage with acclaimed guitar experts Joe Satriani
Joe Satriani
Joseph "Joe" Satriani is an American instrumental rock guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, with multiple Grammy Award nominations...
, Eric Johnson
Eric Johnson
Eric Johnson is an American guitarist. Though he is best known for his success in the instrumental rock format, Johnson regularly incorporates jazz, fusion, gospel and country and western music into his recordings...
and Steve Vai
Steve Vai
Steven Siro "Steve" Vai is a three time Grammy Award-winning American guitarist, songwriter and producer who has sold over 15 million albums. Steve Vai is widely known as a flamboyant guitar virtuoso....
as part of the G3 tour
G3 (tour)
G3 is a concert tour organized by guitarist Joe Satriani featuring him alongside two other guitarists. Since its inception in 1996, G3 has toured most years and has featured many guitarists, including Steve Vai , Eric Johnson, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, Robert Fripp,...
. Vai called Legg "Uncle Adrian" and Satriani said of Legg's musicianship "He's simply the best acoustic guitar player I've ever heard. I don't know anyone else who can create such a cascade of beautiful notes... Adrian plays like he's got hammers for fingers."
Early career
Legg was born May 16, 1948 in HackneyHackney Central
Hackney Central is the central district of the London Borough of Hackney in London, England. It comprises the area roughly surrounding, and extending north from Mare Street. It is situated north east of Charing Cross...
, east London. He studied the oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
as a child but in teenage years his interest shifted to the guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
.
In the early 1970s, Legg won both the composition and performance sections of a competition run by the now defunct Guitar magazine, published by Musical New Services of Denmark Street, which led to his being asked to contribute articles to the magazine. From then on, his technical flair produced a stream of articles in UK music press in the 1970s and early 1980s, culminating in the Kaye and Ward book "Customising Your Electric Guitar", 1981. He spent from 1979 to 1981 as a technician at Rose Morris Ltd., who then handled Marshall amplification, Ovation Guitar
Ovation Guitar
The Ovation Guitar Company, a holding of Kaman Music Corporation, is a guitar manufacturing company based in New Hartford, Connecticut, USA. Ovation primarily manufactures Steel-stringed acoustic guitars....
and Takamine Guitars
Takamine Guitars
is a Japanese guitar manufacturer based in Nakatsugawa, Gifu, Japan. Takamine is known for its steel-string guitars.The company was founded in May 1962; in 1978 they were one of the first companies to introduce acoustic-electric models, where they pioneered the design of the preamp-equalizer...
, and designed original and well-reviewed passive circuits for the then relaunched Vox guitars. In 1990, he was involved in the prototyping and launch of the highly successful Trace Acoustic amplifiers, and continues to maintain technical relationships with the musical instrument industry.
From a 1983 promotional flyer (Technopickers) from Spindrift Records; Having demonstrated Ovation guitar for a number of years and with sessions with Tom Robinson, a tour with Richard Thompson and appearing on Radio One's In Concert programme all have helped established Adrian.
Going global
Legg's first US release, Guitars and Other Cathedrals in 1990, pleased guitar fans. Over the years, he's played at the Montreux Jazz FestivalMontreux Jazz Festival
The Montreux Jazz Festival is the best-known music festival in Switzerland and one of the most prestigious in Europe; it is held annually in early July in Montreux on the shores of Lake Geneva...
and toured with Richard Thompson, David Lindley, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson and as part of the G3 Tour featuring Satriani, Johnson and Favored Nations
Favored Nations
Favored Nations is a record label started by guitarist Steve Vai and former Guitar Center owner Ray Scherr in 1999. The first album ever released by Favored Nations was Frank Gambale's Coming to Your Senses in 2000...
founder Steve Vai
Steve Vai
Steven Siro "Steve" Vai is a three time Grammy Award-winning American guitarist, songwriter and producer who has sold over 15 million albums. Steve Vai is widely known as a flamboyant guitar virtuoso....
. For G3, Legg served as an opening act in 1996 and a headlining act in 1997. An infrequent singer, Legg helped with vocal duties on the collaborative G3 performance of Red House
Red House (song)
"Red House" is a song written by Jimi Hendrix and originally recorded by The Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1966. The song, a slow twelve-bar blues, "is one of the most traditional in sound and form of all his official recordings". It was developed during his pre-Experience days while Hendrix was...
by Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
.
He's also shared the wealth of his talent and experience with teaching DVDs, videos and books. In recent years, he has also been a commentator-at-large for National Public Radio's "All Things Considered", and even more recently, regular listeners have heard his guitar versions of the show's theme music.
Style
Legg plays fingerstyle guitarFingerstyle guitar
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking ....
, mixing an alternating-bass style with harmonics, banjo-peg retuning and single or double-string bending. Often he will play a piece entirely in arpeggios similar to a classical guitar
Classical guitar
The classical guitar is a 6-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones...
style. He makes extensive use of altered tunings and capo
Capo
A capo is a device used on the neck of a stringed instrument to shorten the playable length of the strings, hence raising the pitch. It is frequently used on guitars, mandolins, and banjos. G.B...
s.
Legg has said that his true home is onstage. "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 – to share this wonderful, universal, human emotional interaction. This is where music lives."
A significant part of a performance by Legg is the wryly funny storytelling patter he uses between songs. His distinctive wit is also in written evidence everywhere from his liner notes to his tablature books.
Legg included the use of modeling technology and MIDI for fingerstyle guitar on his 2004 album Inheritance, which features extensive use of guitar synthesisers and modeled guitar sounds. This stands in contrast to the more acoustic sound of Guitar Bones.
Discography
Albums
| Year | Title | Label | Number | Notes |
| 1976 | The All Round Gigster | Guitarist Magazine (UK) | G104 | LP with companion book |
| 1977 | Requiem for a Hick | Westwood (UK) | WRS 125 | LP |
| 1983 | Technopicker | Spindrift (UK) | Spin 201 | LP |
| 1985 | Fretmelt | Spindrift (UK) | Spin 115 | LP |
| 1986 | Lost For Words | Making Waves (UK) | Spin 127 | LP |
| 1990 | Guitars & Other Cathedrals | Relativity Relativity Records Relativity Records, often branded just Relativity, is an American record label founded by Barry Kobrin at the site of his company, Important Record Distribution in metro New York. Early on, as an indie label, Relativity released music in a variety of styles, including dance, jazz, punk, and... |
RR 1045 | |
| 1992 | Guitar for Mortals | Relativity Relativity Records Relativity Records, often branded just Relativity, is an American record label founded by Barry Kobrin at the site of his company, Important Record Distribution in metro New York. Early on, as an indie label, Relativity released music in a variety of styles, including dance, jazz, punk, and... |
RR 1078 | |
| 1993 | Wine, Women & Waltz | Relativity Relativity Records Relativity Records, often branded just Relativity, is an American record label founded by Barry Kobrin at the site of his company, Important Record Distribution in metro New York. Early on, as an indie label, Relativity released music in a variety of styles, including dance, jazz, punk, and... |
RR 9024 | |
| 1993 | Mrs. Crowe's Blue Waltz | Relativity Relativity Records Relativity Records, often branded just Relativity, is an American record label founded by Barry Kobrin at the site of his company, Important Record Distribution in metro New York. Early on, as an indie label, Relativity released music in a variety of styles, including dance, jazz, punk, and... |
RR 9085 | |
| 1994 | High Strung Tall Tales | Relativity Relativity Records Relativity Records, often branded just Relativity, is an American record label founded by Barry Kobrin at the site of his company, Important Record Distribution in metro New York. Early on, as an indie label, Relativity released music in a variety of styles, including dance, jazz, punk, and... |
RR 1224 | |
| 1997 | Waiting for a Dancer | Red House Red House Records Red House Records is an American independent record label specializing in folk music and is based in St. Paul, Minnesota.The label was originally created in 1981 by Greg Brown as a method to distribute his own music, and is named for a farmhouse in Iowa where he was living... |
RHR 99 | |
| 1999 | Fingers and Thumbs | Red House Red House Records Red House Records is an American independent record label specializing in folk music and is based in St. Paul, Minnesota.The label was originally created in 1981 by Greg Brown as a method to distribute his own music, and is named for a farmhouse in Iowa where he was living... |
RHR 133 | |
| 2001 | A Postcard From London | Favored Nations Favored Nations Favored Nations is a record label started by guitarist Steve Vai and former Guitar Center owner Ray Scherr in 1999. The first album ever released by Favored Nations was Frank Gambale's Coming to Your Senses in 2000... Acoustic |
no number | 2 CD-ROM set with photo essays and musical score |
| 2003 | Guitar Bones | Favored Nations Favored Nations Favored Nations is a record label started by guitarist Steve Vai and former Guitar Center owner Ray Scherr in 1999. The first album ever released by Favored Nations was Frank Gambale's Coming to Your Senses in 2000... Acoustic |
FNA 5060 | |
| 2004 | Inheritance | Favored Nations Favored Nations Favored Nations is a record label started by guitarist Steve Vai and former Guitar Center owner Ray Scherr in 1999. The first album ever released by Favored Nations was Frank Gambale's Coming to Your Senses in 2000... Acoustic |
FNA 5100 |
Videos
| Year | Title | Label | Number | Notes |
| 1985 | Beyond Acoustic Guitar | Hot Licks | 151 | VHS |
| 1992 | Fingerpicking and Open Tunings | Hot Licks | 165 | VHS, reissued on DVD (2006) |
| 1999 | How to Cheat At Guitar | Homespun Tapes | no number | VHS, reissued on DVD (2006) as How to Become a More Creative Guitarist |
Compilations
- Full Moon (1997)
- The Ultimate Guitar Survival Guide (1993)
- Relativity: Here and Now... Musical Masters (1991)