Stefan Grossman – Glory of Love

When you go into the dictionary and look up the term “fingerpicking,” there is a photo of Stefan Grossman next to it… well,

no I made that up.

But, when I think of fingerpicking, I’ve always considered Stefan to be one of the best.

Stefan, who has a musical history a mile long, is one of those guitarist that has always specialized in playing the melody.  And with all of the fancy tapping and intricacies, guitars as drums etc, it’s nice to hear a song played this way, be it as simple as it may sound comparatively speaking.

For those of you that are not familiar with Stefan Grossman, here’s a write up from Wiki that you will enjoy…

“Grossman’s interest in the Folk revival was sparked by attending the Washington Square Park “Hoots”, and he started listening to old recordings of artists such as Elizabeth Cotten, Big Bill Broonzy, Leadbelly, Josh White, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Willie Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller, Son House, Charlie Patton, Skip James, Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Woody Guthrie.^[2]

He took guitar lessons for several years from Rev. Gary Davis, whom he later described as “one of the greatest exponents of fingerstyle blues and gospel guitar playing” and “an incredible genius as a teacher”. He spent countless hours learning and documenting Davis’s music, recording much of it on a tape recorder, and developing a form of tablature to take down his teacher’s instructions.

In the folk and country blues revival of the 1960s he was listening to Broonzy, Brownie McGhee and Lightnin’ Hopkins and beginning to collect old 78 rpm records from the 1920s and 1930s. This brought him into contact with other collectors, including John Fahey, ED Denson, Bernie Klatzko, Tom Hoskins and Nick Perls. Collecting the 78s developed into searching for the artists who had recorded them, with many successes: during the mid-60s, Grossman met, befriended and studied guitar with Mississippi John Hurt, Son House,Skip James, Mississippi Fred McDowell and other major blues artists.” read more

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