"Lenny Breau was the best guitarist to ever shit between two boots." Jerry Reed
"Lenny was a comet passing through" Chet Atkins
"If you had dropped a bomb on the place that night you'd have wiped out all the guitar players in the world. They were all down there, from Howard Roberts to George Van Eps to Joe Pass... He conquered Hollywood because we all loved him as a player and we loved him as a person." Carol Kaye
Lenny Breau (1941-1984) was an original and astounding musician, a genius of finger style guitar and one of the greats of the 20th century.
While there have been many brilliant guitarists, from Django Reinhardt to Barney Kessel to Tal Farlow to Herb Ellis to George Benson to Joe Pass to Wes Montgomery to Kenny Burrell to Roy Clark and Hank Garland, only Lenny Breau could delve deeply into a Chet Atkins + J.S. Bach + Bill Evans place.
He could bring the sound of The Bill Evans Trio to the guitar like no another string-master, before or since.
Lenny could nail jazz, country-western, classical, flamenco, you name it, with great sensitivity.
He does more with harmonics alone than most guitar slingers do with 6 (or 7 or 12) strings and 23 frets!
I'll make sure to watch the following YouTube clips of Lenny Breau and the aforementioned guitar genius Tal Farlow playing unbelievably great music together today!
Tommy Emmanuel, in many respects the musician who has carried on and extended the innovative ideas originated by Lenny Breau into the 21st century, reminisces: "I met Lenny in 1980, at Chets' office. The 3 of us jammed for hours then I took Lenny to where he was playing that night. I carried his guitar and amp for him and set it up on the stage. Then I sat at the side and listened intently as Lenny played his way through a set of Jazz standards with a depth and such feeling that I could barely contain my tears and sheer delight in his wonderful soloing. I have never heard anyone do what he did that night, it was a miracle in my eyes! If you've never heard Lenny Breau, then get his "Live at Shelly's Mann Hole " album..Or play Lenny and Chets' version of "Sweet Georgia Brown". It will tell you so much about his brilliance...Tommy CGP."
Lenny's daughter Emily Hughes has produced two documentaries about her father.
The two films can be purchased or rented at lennybreau.com.
Thanks to the research and archive-digging involved in the making of these documentaries, never before seen footage of Lenny, such as the following, continues to turn up.
Here, Tommy Emmanuel pays tribute to Lenny Breau with some remembrances and this terrific song. Enjoy!
And enjoy Lenny Breau's records, too!
While the ace guitarist, as Wes and Django did, left this planet WAY too soon, at least, largely due to the excellent work and steadfast support of his friend and mentor Chet Atkins, Lenny waxed quite a few outstanding records. The following duo with clarinetist Brad Terry, The Complete Living Room Tapes, is one of his best.
To that, we music aficionados at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog say Mo' Breau, please.
1 comment:
an amazing musician.
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