I never cease to be amazed by this…

[sinistral]

Just mind-blowing how talented Michael Hedges was.

[Gordon Currie]

If you heard this in 1984, it was incredibly impactful. There was no one playing like this then, so it was like alien music.

I had a conversation with the engineer who recorded this. They were recording in a house off in the woods.
Michael did a take and listened back. He was so affected that he bolted and ran off into the woods for a few hours!

[fitness1]

Sat at his feet and heard him play it many times, and I agree.

Lots of memories with shows and chats with him.

Can't believe it's been 25 years.

[Daniel Grenier]

If this was science, Hedges would be Einstein.

[rmp]

He was one of a kind..

I was so sad to hear when he passed.

[sinistral]

Originally Posted by Gordon Currie

If you heard this in 1984, it was incredibly impactful. There was no one playing like this then, so it was like alien music.

I had a conversation with the engineer who recorded this. They were recording in a house off in the woods.
Michael did a take and listened back. He was so affected that he bolted and ran off into the woods for a few hours!

This is so true—no one could believe it was a single guitar in one take, no overdubs. Breakfast in the Field was already virtuosic, but Aerial Boundaries was a quantum leap in virtuosity. Michel Hedges definitely ushered in a new style of playing, but very few if any who have followed have his combination of technique and lyricism.

As an aside, I graduated from high school in 1980. I played a couple of times in a band with Michael Manring (including a high school talent show performance of an original song of Michael’s that had a crude title drawn from a Monty Python skit), who graduated a year before me. Imagine my surprise when I’m in Tower Records a couple of years later and I pick up the LP of Breakfast in the Field and see Michael Manring as a musician on the album.

Anyway, Michael Hedges was a gift to us all who was taken from us way too soon. It’s unfathomable what music he would have created if he were still alive.

[Gitfiddlemann]

Originally Posted by sinistral

Anyway, Michael Hedges was a gift to us all who was taken from us way too soon. It’s unfathomable what music he would have created if he were still alive.

So true. He was very bold and adventurous with his music, and so talented.Thanks for posting this thread.
I recall too in the 80s listening to Aerial Boundaries. He elevated guitar playing more than a notch, and his impact was immediate. You can see that his influence continues to this day.

[fitness1]

I remember very well that day in '81 at the record store when I opened and dropped the needle on Breakfast in the Field - Layover stopped me dead in my tracks. Nearly as much because of the recording quality as the performance.

It happened one other time in my 8 years running the store and the other was hearing TE for the first time a few years later on an Artful Balance sampler, playing Lady Madonna.