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Arkansas virtuoso acoustic guitarist Richard Lee
Johnson debuted solo with Fingertip Ship (Metro
Blue, 1999), that included the first version of Glide Path,
followed by the ensemble pieces of
Language (Blue Note, 2001), for example the
guitar-accordion duo Music Roe.
With these works, Johnson
invented a new language for the guitar, halfway between
Leo Kottke
and new-age guitarists such as
William Ackerman and
Michael Hedges, but further
deviated by the use of unorthodox techniques that often summon
violent harmonics.
The Trio for Poetry of Appliance (Cuneiform,
2004) includes
two former members of the Savannah Symphony Orchestra:
Andrew Ripley on wind instruments
(mainly oboe) and Ricardo Ochoa on string instruments
(mainly violin).
The album is split between lively numbers driven by
the guitar-violin duo (Highway 420 Revisited,
Glide Path), lengthy convoluted compositions
(Charmin' Carmen, The Moon is a Sky
Thing), and pieces that could be nostalgic Leo
Kottke-ian vignettes (Her to Hymn,
Eulogy) if it weren't for the additional voice
of the violin.
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