Al Petteway was an American guitarist known primarily for his acoustic fingerstyle work [1] both as a soloist and with well-known folk artists such as Amy White, Tom Paxton, Jethro Burns, Jonathan Edwards, Cheryl Wheeler, Debi Smith, Bonnie Rideout, Maggie Sansone and many others. His own compositions rely heavily on Celtic and Appalachian influences and he is known for his use of DADGAD tuning.[ citation needed ]
Petteway's music has been featured on NPR and on PBS television specials by Ken Burns, most notably The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009). [2] His recordings, music books, and instructional videotapes have gained him a large following of devoted fans around the globe. His playing is featured on more than sixty recordings by some of the world's best known folk and Celtic musicians. Since 1996, he performed exclusively with his wife, Amy White. They were Artists in Residence at The Kennedy Center and at Warren Wilson College. Petteway was the Guitar Week coordinator for the world-famous "Swannanoa Gathering" music camp at Warren Wilson College near Asheville, N.C.[ citation needed ]
In 2005, Al Petteway's rendition of "The Thornbirds" appeared on the Grammy Award-winning compilation of solo guitar renditions of Henry Mancini compositions titled Henry Mancini: Pink Guitar . Before that he and Amy were awarded an Indie award for their duo guitar album Gratitude. Al Petteway was awarded 45 "Wammies" by the Washington Area Music Association including the top honors of "Artist of the Year" and "Musician of the Year". He was the recipient of two Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards for Music Composition and performed at the Vice President's House and The White House during the Clinton administration.[ citation needed ]
In 2012, he was given the "Master Music Makers" award by Warren Wilson College and the Swannanoa Gathering.[ citation needed ]
Petteway lived with his wife Amy White near Asheville, North Carolina.[ citation needed ] He passed away September 25, 2023. [3]
Al Petteway Instructional DVDs:
From Solid Air Records/Alfred Publications:
Music Books from Mel Bay Publications:
Al Petteway Music Books:
D A D G A D, or Celtic tuning is an alternative guitar tuning most associated with Celtic music, though it has also found use in rock, folk, metal and several other genres. Instead of the standard tuning the six guitar strings are tuned, from low to high, D2A2D3G3A3D4.
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking. The term "fingerstyle" is something of a misnomer, since it is present in several different genres and styles of music—but mostly, because it involves a completely different technique, not just a "style" of playing, especially for the guitarist's picking/plucking hand. The term is often used synonymously with fingerpicking except in classical guitar circles, although fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues and country guitar playing in the US. The terms "fingerstyle" and "fingerpicking" are also applied to similar string instruments such as the banjo.
David Michael Gordon "Davey" Graham was a British guitarist and one of the most influential figures in the 1960s British folk revival. He inspired many famous practitioners of the fingerstyle acoustic guitar such as Bert Jansch, Wizz Jones, John Renbourn, Martin Carthy, John Martyn, Paul Simon and Jimmy Page, who based his solo "White Summer" on Graham's "She Moved Through the Fair". Graham is probably best known for his acoustic instrumental "Anji" and for popularizing DADGAD tuning, later widely adopted by acoustic guitarists.
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