Tasmania Live
Richard Gilewitz is a virtuosic American finger-style guitarist who is arguably the finest exponent of the genre pioneered by his friends and mentors: John Fahey, Peter Lang and Leo Kottke. Richard approaches this tradition with deep respect and care. In concert he will often juxtapose a standard of American finger-style guitar with a classical piece and bookend both with strange stories and amusing anecdotes.
Leo Kottke, a sometime master of understatement, once described Richard Gilewitz as a "weird guy". Given that Leo was probably fairly close to the mark it seems fitting that Richard would record his next live album in a place that has its own unique reputation for weirdness.
Imagine if some god of myth took a bit of the south of England, a bit of Ireland, a mountain range from Kentucky and some of the coast from the US Pacific North West and squashed them up into a heart shaped island, then dropped it mysteriously south of Australia and north of Antarctica. Australia has its own "Further Down Under" sometime referred to as, "The End of The World". That place is Tasmania, a place with wyrd written into its very soil and air.
When Richard and I collaborated to arrange for him to come to Tasmania to record and perform, we were both aware that there was something of historical significance brewing.
In 1959 the enigmatic father of finger-picking music, John Fahey, produced the first album of steel string guitar instrumentals. John drew on folk styles, blues, bluegrass, classical and oriental ideas to build a concert repertoire for the steel string guitar.
He went on to co-found Takoma Records, and to discover and mentor Leo Kottke among others. In 1981 he visited Tasmania and in a legendary concert recorded the famous album 'John Fahey Live in Tasmania'. I had been at that concert 30 years ago so it came as a surprise to me that in America it was believed by many in the guitar fraternity that this was another of Fahey's famous hoaxes and that he had never been to or recorded in Tasmania.
In fact it was real and a lot of odd things happened that night in the old theatre at the University of Tasmania. Fahey performed magnificently despite partaking of generous quantities of the strong local ale. A large part of the recording did not work so Fahey repeated the second section of the program, while a few of us stayed back to generate the required applause for a live performance.
Thirty years after Fahey's famous visit, Richard Gilewitz retraced the steps of his mentor and performed three concerts in Tasmania and gave a number of workshops. Despite arriving in the coldest windiest week of Tasmania's maritime winter, Gilewitz drew large enthusiastic crowds for all of his performances. Milking orchestral textures from his six and twelve string guitars, delighting audiences with silly tales and sonic adventures, his own "Tasmania Live" album will undoubtedly become an iconic recording in its own right.
Steve Gadd
1. Wazamataz 2:46
2. St. Louis Blues 2:36
3. Embryonic Journey 3:12
4. Studio Lips Story 1:50
5. Orange Room 3:55
6. Tu Vuo` Fa` L'Americano 3:19
7. Dallas Rag 2:09
8. Dirt To Dust 6:48
9. Somewhere Over the Rainbow 1:38
10. Both Sides Now 3:07
11.Freight Train/Take a Look at That Baby 2:41
12. Mischief at 30,000 Feet Story 2:12
13. The Train and the Gate 3:24
14. The Tennessee Toad 3:08
15. Sunflower River Blues 3:29
16. Have You Ever Seen a Rainbow at Night? 2:58
17. Sarah Natasha 4:03
18. When I'm Sixty-Four 2:20
19. Spanish Two Step 2:59
20. Bilingual Single Story 2:08
21. Bilingual Fantasy 3:37
22. Jack Fig 3:54
Recorded live in Tasmania, July 2011 at Brookfield Margate and Palais Theatre
Reviews
Tasmania Live
© Kirk Albrecht, minor7th.com, 7 January 2012
Richard Gilewitz "Tasmania Live," 2011 The irreverent Richard Gilewitz has brought smiles to the faces of his fans again with the release of "Tasmania Live," recorded in that land of the "devil" somewhere in the ocean south of Australia. Listeners will quickly hear the stylings and songs of two of Gilewitz's mentors – John Fahey and Leo Kottke. Fahey came to the island 30 years ago, and Gilewitz pays old John a compliment by playing no less than 3 Fahey songs on the CD. Gilewitz is a true master of fingerstyle guitar, and can play about anything possible on six or twelve strings. The bulk of the material from these two concerts is blues, ragtime, and folk. Mixed between the songs is the natural patter and humor his audiences have come to expect from a Richard Gilewitz show. He plays with grace and power on Jorma Kaukonen's "Embryonic Journey" (sounding a lot like Leo Kottke), while opening the CD with a rollicking version of his own song "Wazamataz." When he's not rolling, Gilewitz slows it down with a lush jazzy version of the Howard Arlen classic "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." You can't hear anything but the guitar, all ears straining to catch each phrase, even as he seamlessly segues into Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now." Really lovely playing. He covers the Beatles' "When I'm Sixty-Four" with the cheek it deserves. Gilewitz and his co-producer Tim May end the disc with Kottke's "Jack Fig" – a fine way to go out. Gilewitz is at the top of his game, and the audiences who heard him in Tasmania had a treat.
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L2P Network/ Robert Linquist
Well, I wasn’t able to make it to the Palais Theatre in Tasmania last summer to hear finger-style guitarist Richard Gilewitz perform live, but according to our correspondent in the land DownUnder, it was quite an event. Lucky for those of us who were on walk-about and couldn’t make it, the event was been captured for live CD. For Richard, music is his life and his livlihood. He fully understands that to reap the benefits of performing for a living, much hard work is required. With that goal in mind, he’s become not only a master performer—blending relatable storytelling with a sophisticated style of playing—but an accomplished networker as well. Through this combination of skills (and a highly dedicated street team of fans and friends) Richard is able to sniff out and pursue opportunities often missed. As a result, he’s trotted much of the globe and played for countless people in many countries... and made many friends along the way.
Tasmania Live is an excellent collection of songs that not only demonstrate that he knows which side of the guitar the strings are on, but that he appreciates his music from the standpoint of his audience. Obviously, the reason we attend concerts in the first place is to watch the artist perform their magic before our very eyes, and there’s a lot of magic in Richard’s music. While the visual aspect may be lost from the recording, the music itself takes on a a fuller, more intense level of expression. This reviewers favorites include “Have You Seen A Rainbow At Night?,” “Bilingual Fantasy,” and “Sarah Natasha.” There are also some wonderfully done covers thrown in for good mention, including “Somewhere Over The Rainbow,” “Freight Train,” and “Both sides Now.” For samples of three of the songs on the CD (unfortunately, none of those I mentioned) just go to his web site.
The production quality is excellent. And while it sounds fine through earbuds, it’s better listened to on a good stereo, in a big room, with volume up. In fact, if you tape a couple of big blow up photos of Richard to your wall, it’ll be just like you are there, in the front row, for Tasmania Live. Popcorn?
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Robert Silverstein, mwe3.com
Florida-based guitarist Richard Gilewitz has long been on the musical radar of guitar fans for years. Richard’s 2004 album, Thumbsing drew praises from the guitar community and he has returned in recent years with several new albums including a 2011 album called Tasmania Live. Inspired by the 1981 album, John Fahey Live In Tasmania, Richard’s Tasmania Live is very much rooted in the Fahey style of finger-style acoustic instrumental guitar music, jazzed-up with a liberal dose of Ragtime-flavored acoustic guitar magic. Recorded live at the old theatre at the University Of Tasmania in Australia, the 22 track CD features covers some of the most famous guitar music of all time with many of the tracks penned by guitarists with huge names like Kaukonen, Fahey and Kottke. Along with a sprinkling of originals, Tasmania Live is a good example of the Gilewitz live concert experience. More recent from Richard is his latest single called “Fuschia Circle North” released in 2017 through CD baby. There’s a definite Irish music lilt to the track, which features Richard’s guitar performing a duet with fellow guitarist Stephen Housden along with some excellent flute work by Margaret Kennedy. In addition to his inspiring acoustic guitar work, Richard Gilewitz is also a renowned music instructor and his latest book on Mel Bay is called First Lessons: Fingerstyle Ukulele. An easy how-to book for aspiring Uke fans, the 40 page book includes plenty of easy to read sheet music featuring Uke transcriptions of song classics from “Bicycle Built For Two” to “Waltzing Matilda”. Guitar fans could also learn learn something from the easy to read, melody lines that accompany the chord transcriptions as well as the song histories of each track. With so many albums and music books to his credit, Richard Gilewitz is a true renaissance man of the fretboard world.
