Pierre Bensusan - Buying Recommendations?

[Rocky Dijohn]

I am a finger style player and I am familiar with records by El McMeen, Pat Kirtley, Al Petteway and a few others working the Celtic angle. But I have never bought or listened to the work of Pierre Bensusan. I am looking for recommendations concerning what to purchase ---- both albums and teaching materials.

[noledog]

Intuitive has become a DADGAD classic and must have...it was my introduction to listening and learning a bit of it. I wore that CD out, so beautiful.

[TBman]

I've always liked PB's Wui Wei. I was going to recommend going to www.classclef.com for some of his notation, but the website has been down for over 3 days according to www.isitdownrightnow.com

[Step]

Intuite is his Classic album from 2000, pretty much his own compositions and some incredible playing and wonderful melodies. It's all solo guitar instrumental. It's not "Celtic" in the traditional sense.

Musiques is a much earlier album (1979) and has a lot of his "classic" interpretations of celtic tunes. He does a fair bit of "singing" and whistling thoughout, I'm not a massive fan of his vocal stylings but there's still plenty on musiques to get excited about.

His Guitar Book is an incredible guitar resource full of ideas, thoughts, reciepes, tips and more than few scores/tabs.

[Gordon Currie]

Solilai - early album but essential, where he truly got his sound and style together for the first time.

Spices - a jazzy album with flute, fretless bass and percussion on some songs. I saw him on this tour and wish he had continued in this direction.

Encore - a relatively recent 3 CD set taken from live shows. The quality is excellent and covers much of his repertoire.

You may end up getting many if his style speaks to you. I find him to be unlike many contemporaries, as he improvises constantly both melodically and rhythmically.

[colins]

Altiplanos is a great album too, and it features interesting contrasts in tone between his "Old Lady" Lowden and the phenomenal signature guitar that Kevin Ryan built for him.

In addition to PB - have you listened to Simon Fox? Lots of good DADGAD material at his website.

Col

[Proclaimer888]

Intuite and Pres de Paris are my favs. Pierre also has his own guitar book...wonderful publication with many of his older tunes to include interesting writings, photo's and guitar concepts. So much good music from Pierre to explore.

[TBman]

Its back up, here are some of his songs:

http://www.classclef.com/?s=bensusan

[Gobo]

Just download Spotify and listen at your leisure before you decide what to buy.

[boombox]

Originally Posted by Gordon Currie

...

Encore - a relatively recent 3 CD set taken from live shows. The quality is excellent and covers much of his repertoire.

You may end up getting many if his style speaks to you. I find him to be unlike many contemporaries, as he improvises constantly both melodically and rhythmically.

This definitely! It's a pity 'Nice Feeling' is out of print as that's a wonderful compilation. +1 on The Guitar Book too, though much of it is very hard!

[MCDEMO1]

PB has a great lesson available from True Fire, "DADGAD Explorer" and earlier DVD lessons and concerts from Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop. The three in-depth individual song tutorials from SongMaster/iVideosongs are well done too.

Mark

[Step]

Originally Posted by colins

In addition to PB - have you listened to Simon Fox? Lots of good DADGAD material at his website.

Thanks for sharing this.... Always on the look out for more DADGAD resources!