Michael Cooper (born 24 August 1942) is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Initially coming to attention as a

country blues Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in t ...

performer, his later work also straddles

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

, Polynesian,

ambient Ambient or Ambiance or Ambience may refer to: Music and sound * Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgrounds * Ambient music, a genre of music that puts an emphasis on tone and atmosphere * ''Ambient'' (album), by Moby * ...

, and various experimental and improvisational styles.

Biography

Early life

Mike Cooper was born in

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

, Berkshire. After spending several years as a child in Australia, he returned to England. He started playing guitar after leaving school aged 16, and became involved in local

skiffle Skiffle is a genre of folk music with influences from American folk music, blues, country, bluegrass, and jazz, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a form in the United States ...

groups. Having spent time at local

clubs, in 1961 he saw

Sonny Terry Saunders Terrell (October 24, 1911 – March 11, 1986), known as Sonny Terry, was an American Piedmont blues and folk musician, who was known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers and oc ...

and

Brownie McGhee Walter Brown "Brownie" McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996) was an American folk music and Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaboration with the harmonica player Sonny Terry. Life and career McGhee wa ...

play with

Terry Lightfoot Terence Lightfoot (21 May 1935 – 15 March 2013) was a British jazz clarinettist and bandleader, and together with Chris Barber, Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball was one of the leading members of the trad jazz generation of British jazzmen. Early li ...

, and harmonica player

James Cotton James Henry Cotton (July 1, 1935 – March 16, 2017) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who performed and recorded with many fellow blues artists and with his own band. He also played drums early in his career. ...

playing with

Chris Barber Donald Christopher "Chris" Barber OBE (17 April 1930 – 2 March 2021) was an English jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist. He helped many musicians with their careers and had a UK top twenty trad jazz hit with " Petite Fl ...

's band at the

Beaulieu Jazz Festival Beaulieu ( ) is a small village located on the southeastern edge of the New Forest national park in Hampshire, England, and home to both Palace House and the British National Motor Museum. History The name Beaulieu comes etymologically ...

. Inspired by

Alexis Korner Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner (19 April 1928 – 1 January 1984), known professionally as Alexis Korner, was a British blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a founding father of British blues". A major in ...

, he formed an R&B band, the Blues Committee, in which he was the lead singer. The band supported visiting

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

musicians including

John Lee Hooker John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often ...

Jimmy Reed Mathis James Reed (September 6, 1925 – August 29, 1976) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His particular style of electric blues was popular with blues as well as non-blues audiences. Reed's songs such as "Honest I Do" (1957), " ...

, and Sonny Boy Williamson. With changes in line-up, from 1964 the Blues Committee diversified into

modern jazz Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...

as well as R&B. Cooper also played as a solo act in

folk club A folk club is a regular event, permanent venue, or section of a venue devoted to folk music and traditional music. Folk clubs were primarily an urban phenomenon of 1960s and 1970s Great Britain and Ireland, and vital to the second British folk r ...

s around Reading, performing

and folk music, Biography by Thom Jurek, ''Allmusic.com''
Retrieved 4 September 2019 and reportedly turned down the opportunity to join

The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...

as a guitarist. "Meet Mike Cooper, the mysterious folk blues legend who turned down the Rolling Stones", ''DangerousMinds.net'', 6 June 2014
Retrieved 7 September 2019 After meeting such musicians as

Martin Carthy Martin Carthy MBE (born 21 May 1941) is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, and later artists such as ...

Leon Rosselson Leon Rosselson (born 22 June 1934, Harrow, Middlesex, England) is an English songwriter and writer of children's books. After his early involvement in the folk music revival in Britain, he came to prominence, singing his own satirical songs, i ...

and

Don Partridge Donald Eric Partridge (27 October 1941 – 21 September 2010)Report of death< ...

, he began playing in London clubs, and appeared briefly as a guitar player in the 1963 film ''

That Kind of Girl ''That Kind of Girl'' is a British cult film and the directorial debut of Gerry O'Hara. Produced by Robert Hartford-Davis with a script by Jan Read, it was released in 1963. The film's subject is premarital sexual relationships and sexually tran ...

''. He bought a 1932

National National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

resophonic guitar A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar is an acoustic guitar that produces sound by conducting string vibrations through the bridge to one or more spun metal cones (resonators), instead of to the guitar's sounding board (top). Resonator gu ...

, and learned to play

Blind Boy Fuller Blind Boy Fuller (born Fulton Allen, July 10, 1904February 13, 1941) was an American blues guitarist and singer. Fuller was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists, rural African Americans, along with Blind Blake, Josh Wh ...

's repertoire of songs, gradually acquiring his own style and learning to play

lap steel guitar The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals that is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap. Unlike the usual manner of playing a traditional ...

with a miniature whiskey bottle. "Mike Cooper – A Biography", ''Cooparia.com''
Retrieved 4 September 2019

Early career

In 1965 Cooper turned professional, and played regular gigs in and around Reading. He met virtuoso guitarist Derek Hall, and they established a shared residency at the Shades coffee house in Reading, hosting visiting artists such as

John Renbourn John Renbourn (8 August 1944 – 26 March 2015) was an English guitarist and songwriter. He was best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the folk group Pentangle, although he maintained a solo care ...

Bert Jansch Herbert Jansch (3 November 1943 – 5 October 2011) was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s as an acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter ...

Davey Graham David Michael Gordon "Davey" Graham (originally spelled Davy Graham) (26 November 1940 – 15 December 2008) was a British guitarist and one of the most influential figures in the 1960s British folk revival. He inspired many famous practitioners ...

Al Stewart Alastair Ian Stewart (born 5 September 1945) is a Scottish born singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician who rose to prominence as part of the British folk revival in the 1960s and 1970s. He developed a unique style of combining folk-rock so ...

and others. With Hall, Cooper recorded a limited edition EP, ''Out of the Shades'', on the local Kennet record label, comprising a mixture of country blues and other tunes. After Hall moved away, Cooper teamed up with harmonica player Jerry Kingett and recorded an unreleased album in the Netherlands. Cooper continued to perform as a solo act, touring widely in the UK and Europe. In 1968, he recorded another EP, ''Up the Country Blues'', for the Saydisc label in Bristol, with

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes. Origin Liner notes are desce ...

by his friend

Ian A. Anderson Ian A. Anderson (born 26 July 1947, in Weston-super-Mare, England) is an English people, English magazine editor, folk musician and Radio presenter, broadcaster. Country blues, The Village Thing and "psych folk" Anderson first performed in h ...

. Liner notes by Ian A. Anderson, ''Up the Country Blues'', ''45cat.com''
Retrieved 7 September 2019 Cooper and Anderson appeared, with fellow acoustic blues musicians Jo Ann and Dave Kelly, on the album ''Blues Like Showers of Rain'', and Cooper and Anderson also shared the LP ''The Inverted World'', both albums released on the Matchbox label. Cooper continued to develop his playing style, and performed around Britain in clubs and at festivals. In 1968 he signed a recording contract offered by record producer

Peter Eden Peter Eden (born 1943) is a British former record producer and record label executive, best known for his work in the mid-1960s with Donovan, and later with jazz musicians such as John Surman. Biography Eden was born in Hadleigh, Essex. In his ...

Pye Records Pye Records was a British record label. Its best known artists were Lonnie Donegan (1956–1969), Petula Clark (1957–1971), the Searchers (1963–1967), the Kinks (1964–1971), Sandie Shaw (1964–1971), Status Quo (1968–1971) and Brotherhoo ...

, and at the end of the year recorded the album ''Oh Really!?''. Apart from one song each by Blind Boy Fuller and

Son House Edward James "Son" House Jr. (March 21, 1902His date of birth is a matter of some debate. House alleged that he was middle-aged during World War I and that he was 79 in 1965, which would make his date of birth around 1886. However, all legal re ...

, all the tracks were written by Cooper. The album was performed as acoustic blues, with Cooper heavily influenced by

Mississippi Fred McDowell Fred McDowell (January 12, 1904 – July 3, 1972), known by his stage name Mississippi Fred McDowell, was an American hill country blues singer and guitar player. Career McDowell was born in Rossville, Tennessee, United States. His parents were f ...

, with whom he performed. Increasingly Cooper developed his own eclectic approach following his exposure to a wider range of music, especially jazz, at festivals where he performed. His second album, ''Do I Know You?'', on Pye's subsidiary

Dawn Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the appearance of indirect sunlight being scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc has reached 18° below the observer's horizo ...

label, featured the bass playing of jazz musician Harry Miller, as well as

field recording Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside a recording studio, and the term applies to recordings of both natural and human-produced sounds. It also applies to sound recordings like electromagnetic fields or vibra ...

s, and was followed by his 1970 album ''Trout Steel'', featuring a wider range of musicians including

Mike Osborne Michael Evans Osborne (28 September 1941 – 19 September 2007) was an English jazz alto saxophonist, pianist, and clarinetist who was a member of the band Brotherhood of Breath in the 1960s and 1970s. Biography Mike Osborne was born in Her ...

Alan Skidmore Alan Richard James Skidmore (born 21 April 1942) is an English jazz tenor saxophonist, and the son of saxophonist Jimmy Skidmore. Career He was born in London, England. Skidmore began his professional career in his teens, and early in his care ...

and John Taylor, as well as Harry Miller,

Stefan Grossman Stefan Grossman (born April 16, 1945) is an American acoustic fingerstyle guitarist and singer, music producer and educator, and co-founder of Kicking Mule records. He is known for his instructional videos and Vestapol line of videos and DVDs. ...

, and the folk-rock band

Heron The herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 72 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera ''Botaurus'' and ''Ixobrychus ...

. The album is considered "one of his most enduring and influential recordings." His next album, ''Places I Know'', was originally intended as a

double album A double album (or double record) is an audio album that spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically either records or compact disc. A double album is usually, though not always, released as such because the recording i ...

, with one LP of blues recordings and the other covering jazz and rock, but was released as a single album credited to Mike Cooper with the Machine Gun Co. and Michael Gibbs. In 1972, he released ''The Machine Gun Co. with Mike Cooper'', a band album on which the other members were Geoff Hawkins (saxophone), Alan Cook (keyboards), Les Calvert (bass) and Tim Richardson (percussion). He was encouraged by music executive Tony Hall to make what became his final album of the decade, ''Life & Death in Paradise''. It was released in 1974 and featured drummer

Louis Moholo Louis Tebogo Moholo (born 10 March 1940), is a South African jazz drummer. He has been a member of several notable bands, including The Blue Notes, the Brotherhood of Breath and Assagai. Biography Born in Cape Town, Moholo formed The Blue ...

. In 1977, two of his tracks were included on Stefan Grossman's album ''Country Blues Guitar Festival'' which also featured Son House and Jo Ann Kelly.

Stylistic diversification and later career

Cooper continued to perform and tour in the UK and Europe, often collaborating with jazz musicians. He later said of the period, "I left behind the safe shores of melody and conventional harmony and headed out into the sea of

timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or musical tone, tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voice ...

." Interview: Mike Cooper, ''M-magazine'', 14 October 2015
Retrieved 7 September 2019 The album Ave They Started Yet?'' recorded a collaboration with dancer Joanna Pyne on a tour in Europe in early 1980. The same year, he recorded a live album in Berlin with

free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during ...

musicians

David Holland David “Dave” Holland (born 1 October 1946) is an English jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader who has been performing and recording for five decades. He has lived in the United States for over 40 years. His extensive discography r ...

and

Lol Coxhill George Lowen Coxhill (19 September 1932 – 10 July 2012) known professionally as Lol Coxhill, was an English free improvising saxophonist. He played soprano and sopranino saxophone. Biography Coxhill was born to George Compton Coxhill ...

(credited as "The Johnny Rondo Duo"). He also played in

G.T. Moore Gerald Thomas Moore (born 2 May 1949) is an English singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist with a recording career that stretches back to the early 1970s. Moore recorded and performed with numerous musicians such as Jimmy Cliff, Lee 'Scratc ...

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

band the Outsiders; experimental band The Mayhem Quartet; the " no wave" jazz group Beating Time; the band Avant Roots, playing a mixture of Greek

rembetika Rebetiko ( el, ρεμπέτικο, ), plural rebetika ( ), occasionally transliterated as rembetiko or rebetico, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek music which have come to be grouped together since the s ...

and improvised music; acoustic country blues band National Gallery; and electric blues band Continental Drift. In 1985, he recorded ''The Continuous Preaching Blues'' with Ian A. Anderson. He also recorded with Lol Coxhill and percussionist Roger Turner as The Recedents. Cooper became increasingly influenced by Polynesian

slack key Slack-key guitar (from Hawaiian ''kī hōalu'', which means "loosen the uningkey") is a fingerstyle genre of guitar music that originated in Hawaii after Portuguese cowboys introduced Spanish guitars there in the late 19th century. The Hawaiian ...

guitar styles, and in 1987 recorded an album, ''Aveklei Uptowns Hawaiians'', with French slide guitarist Cyrille Lefebvre and other musicians including Lol Coxhill. He has continued to record in a unique style that he has called "ambient electronic exotica". From 1986 to 1996, he performed around Europe (Italy/Germany/Switzerland) with a four piece country blues band called "National Gallery - featuring Mark Makin, Michael Messer and Ed Genis. They performed around various festivals and appeared on Paul Jones Blues show on BBC Radio 2. They also appeared on Rai Uno TV in Italy. A CD featuring half of the band (Cooper/Makin) was issued on Rhiannon records called "National Gallery - Keep It Clean". Living in Rome, in 1999 he set up his own Hipshot label to release his recordings, and his subsequent releases have been prolific. Some of his albums include looped samples of music recorded in the Pacific,

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

, Australia, and elsewhere, often treated electronically. His later releases have included ''Rayon Hula'' (2004), which incorporates samples of

exotica Exotica is a musical genre, named after the 1957 Martin Denny album of the same name that was popular during the 1950s to mid-1960s with Americans who came of age during World War II. The term was coined by Simon "Si" Waronker, Liberty Records ...

musician

Arthur Lyman Arthur Lyman (February 2, 1932 – February 24, 2002) was an Hawaiian jazz vibraphone and marimba player. His group popularized a style of faux-Polynesian music during the 1950s and 1960s which later became known as exotica. His albums became ...

, ''White Shadows in the South Seas'' (2013), and ''New Globe Notes'' (2014). Cooper has also written and performed scores for

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

s played at festivals around the world. He has also written extensively on Hawaiian slack key guitar styles and performers.

Reissues

His early 1970s albums ''Trout Steel'', ''Places I Know'', and ''The Machine Gun Co. with Mike Cooper'' have been reissued on CD.

Discography

Solo albums

* ''Oh Really?!'' (Pye, 1969) * ''Do I Know You?'' (Dawn, 1970) * ''Trout Steel'' (Dawn, 1971) * ''Places I Know'' (Dawn, 1972) * ''Life & Death in Paradise'' (Fresh Air, 1975) * ''Mississippi Delta Blues – Live from Papa Madeo'' (LTR, 1982) * ''Island Songs'' (Nato, 1996) * ''Kiribati'' (Hipshot, 1999) * ''Zanzibar'' (Hipshot, 1999) * ''Finding Other Worlds – 21st Century Guitars'' (Hipshot, 2000) * ''Marconi'' (Hipshot, 2001) * ''Globe Notes'' (Hipshot, 2001) * ''Attenti Al Fuso'' (Hipshot, 2002) * ''Radio Daze'' (Hipshot, 2003) * ''Cruising Paradise'' (Hipshot, 2003) * ''Rayon Hula'' (Hipshot, 2004) * ''Metalbox'' (Hipshot, 2005) * ''Reluctant Swimmer / Virtual Surfer'' (Hipshot, 2005) * ''Spirit Songs'' (Hipshot, 2006) * ''Giacinto'' (Hipshot, 2006) * ''Borders'' (Hipshot, 2006) * ''Send of the Sea'' (Hipshot, 2007) * ''Beach Crossings – Pacific Footprints'' (Rai Trade, 2007) * ''Future Folk'' (Hipshot, 2008) * ''Aelita, Queen of Mars'' (Hipshot, 2008) * ''Tabu'' (Hipshot, 2008) * ''Onibaba'' (Hipshot, 2008) * ''Pacific Voyager'' (Hipshot, 2008) * ''Chao Phraya'' (Hipshot, 2008) * ''Live at the Hint House, New York City'' (Qbico, 2009) * ''Live in Sardinia'' (Hipshot, 2010) * ''Live in Athens'' (Hipshot, 2010) * ''Blue Guitar'' (Hipshot, 2010) * ''Radio Paradise – Mike Cooper in Beirut'' (Johnny Kafka, 2011) * ''White Shadows in the South Seas'' (Room40, 2013) * ''Forbidden Delta Planet Blues'' (Linear Obsessional, 2015) * ''Light on a Wall'' (Backwards, 2015) * ''Fratello Mare'' (Room40, 2015) * ''Guitar Solos – Free at Last'' (Hipshot, 2016) * ''Sky Songs'' (Hipshot, 2016) * ''New Guitar, Old Hat, Knew Blues'' (Room40, 2016) * ''Raft'' (Room40, 2017) * ''The Five Rings'' (Hipshot, 2018) * ''Tropical Gothic'' (Discrepant, 2018) * ''Playing With Water'' (Room40, 2020) Mike Cooper Discography, ''Cooparia.com''
Retrieved 8 September 2019

Collaborations and shared albums

* ''Blues Like Showers of Rain'' (various artists, Saydisc, 1968) * ''Inverted World'' (with

, Saydisc, 1968) * ''Mike Cooper with the Machine Gun Co. and Michael Gibbs'' (Dawn, 1971) * ''The Machine Gun Co. with Mike Cooper'' (Dawn, 1973) * ''How To Play Blues Guitar Vol. 2'' (with

, Kicking Mule, 1977) * ''Country Blues Guitar Festival'' (with Stefan Grossman, Kicking Mule, 1978) * Ave They Started Yet?'' (with Joanna Pyne, Matchless, 1981) * ''Johnny Rondo Duo Plus Mike Cooper'' (with

and

, FMP, 1982) * ''The Continuous Preaching Blues'' (with Ian A. Anderson, Appaloosa, 1985) * ''Barbecue Strut'' (as The Recedents, with Lol Coxhill and Roger Turner, Nato, 1986) * ''Aveklei Uptown Hawaiians'' (with Cyril Lefebvre, Chabada, 1987) * ''Zombie Bloodbath on the Isle of Dogs'' (as The Recedents, with Lol Coxhill and Roger Turner, Nato, 1991) * ''Avant Roots'' (with Viv Dogan Corringham, Mash, 1994) * ''Improvvisazioni Quartetto'' (with Jean-Marc Montera, Mauro Orselli, Eugenio Sanna, Ada, 1998) * ''Hulabaluh'' (with The Uptown Hawaiians, Hipshot, 2001) * ''Live @ Cineclub Detour'' (with

Richard Nunns Richard Anthony Nunns (7 December 1945 – 7 June 2021) was a Māori traditional instrumentalist of Pākehā heritage. He was particularly known for playing taonga pūoro and his collaboration with fellow Māori instrumentalist Hirini Melbourn ...

and Elio Martusciello, Hipshot, 2003) * ''Guardia Avanti'' (with Viv Corringham, Lol Coxhill,

Steve Beresford Steve Beresford (born 6 March 1950) is a British musician who graduated from the University of York He has played a variety of instruments, including piano, electronics, trumpet, euphonium, bass guitar and a wide variety of toy instruments, such ...

Max Eastley Max Eastley (born 1 December 1944, Torquay, Devon, England) is a British visual and sound artist. He is part of the Cape Farewell Climate Change project. He studied painting and graphic art at Newton Abbot Art School and then went on to gain a BA ...

, Hipshot, 2003) * ''Tu Fuego'' (with Jeff Henderson, Anthony Donaldson, Tom Callwood, Qbico, 2006) * ''Oceanic Feeling-Like'' (with

Chris Abrahams Christopher Robert Lionel Abrahams (born 1961, Oamaru, New Zealand) is a New Zealand-born, Australian-based musician. He is a founding mainstay member of experimental, jazz trio the Necks (1987–present), he collaborated with Melanie Oxley as ...

, Room40, 2008) * ''Right Hear Side By Side'' (with Yan Chiu Leung, Linear Obsessional, 2013) * ''Trace'' (with Chris Abrahams, Al Maslakh, 2014) * ''Truth in the Abstract Blues'' (with Fabrizio Spera, Roberto Bellatalla, Ethbo, 2014) * ''Cantos de Lisboa'' (with Steve Gunn, Rvng, 2014)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Mike 1942 births Living people English blues guitarists English jazz guitarists English male guitarists Acoustic guitarists