Sold Date: March 13, 2021
Start Date: November 13, 2020
Final Price: £20.00 (GBP)
Seller Feedback: 53
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‘Done in pokerwork and hung in the nurseries of future guitarists, there is, I imagine, a set of commandments for the players of fretted instruments:

All guitar styles are created equal in the ears of the Lord.

            Thou shalt learn to play as many as thou art able.

            Whatever thine own special style thou shalt listen to, and enjoy, all the other styles.

            Thou shalt learn about the history of thine instrument.......

That may seem far fetched, but the only doubts I have about it concern the pokerwork and the exact wording. Otherwise I stand by my long held conviction that guitarists, considering the vast range of music accessible to them, constitute one of the most cohesive mutually understanding groups of people in the world. My feeling about this have just been reinforced by the music on this recording.

It is played by Simon James and Nicholas Webb. They started their careers from opposite ends of the musical spectrum and the guitar is probably the only instrument over which they could have met somewhere in the middle. Simon studied in the academically accepted way, first at Leeds College of Music then at Trinity College, where he now continues as a teacher. Nicholas Webb began as a folk guitarist, in other words in a field where virtuosity was actually faintly suspect at one time - and expanded his scope by taking a Jazz Course at Leeds. If the guitar is the key to their musical understanding, Leeds was the key to their meeting.'

Peter Clayton (1981) Presenter - Sounds Of Jazz BBC Radio 2 1973 to 1991

This is the original Acoustic Alchemy first album on top grade vinyl ( not re-cycled). When the original record company went bust the remaining albums were divided up between NIck and I and these are what's left of my portion. They've never been out of the sleeve so the record is perfect but having been in a box for more than 30 years the sleeve is showing its age with some fading round the edges. I only have 25 when they're gone that's it.

Simon James