Saturday, 23 June 2018

John Renbourn - Live in Kyoto 1978


Rating: 5/5

Review:
A joy


This is a really good disc.  I'm pretty sceptical now about any posthumous release of "rediscovered" live material because so many of them are terrible recordings, but this is a wonderful, professional-standard recording of John Renbourn playing superbly.

The material shows the breadth and depth of John's musical interests, with traditional English music, blues, ragtime and so on.  There's even an encore of two pieces by the late Renaissance lutenist Hans Neusidler, which are extraordinary both in their composition and in John's amazing playing.  It's a fine, fine programme and the guitar work is stunning.  There's just the right amount of chat between tracks to give an idea of the live atmosphere but not to become tedious on repeated listening, and it's all very engaging.

John has been right near the top of my "Wish I could play like…" list for 50 years now.  If I ever play one-tenth as well as he does here, I'll be very, very happy.  (I know I won't but I can still dream and practice…)  It's a joy of a release which any Rebourn fan or any lover of great acoustic guitar playing will love.  Very warmly recommended.

(Just in case anyone is interested, John is rather rude about Hans Neusidler but there's a very good disc of lute music by his son Melchior recorded by the great Paul O'Dette, which I can also recommend very warmly. Amazon page HERE.)

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