''One String Leads to Another'' is the third solo recording by American guitarist
Tim Sparks
Tim Sparks (born October 31, 1954) is an American acoustic guitar player, singer, arranger and composer.
Life
Raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he was given his first guitar when a bout of encephalitis kept him out of school for a year. T ...
, released in 1999.
History
The title is taken from a quote by
John Renbourn. While speaking of
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 ...
's travels in
Morocco "where he came across a tuning used on an exotic, North African string instrument. Davey tried to adapt this to his guitar. Well, one string leads to another and before you know it, he's come up with DADGAD guitar tuning."
Sparks wrote the songs while spending time in Mexico. "I found myself exploring the sounds of where I grew up in North Carolina, you know, more native American sounds, and cross-pollinating them, if you will, with sounds from around the world. Sounds I have explored in music from other cultures".
Reception
Stacia Proefrock wrote for
Allmusic "Tim Sparks has issued another winner. Rather than merely imitating one particular style throughout a certain song, he instead absorbs the techniques and melodies of many different cultures and fuses them together to make them his own."
Andy Ellis of ''
Guitar Player'' magazine stated "There are many skilled solo-acoustic guitarists making CDs today, but few can match Sparks' verve and intensity. On this live and natural-sounding record, we hear a restless, probing mind, rather than a series of refined techniques."
The June 2000 issue of
Down Beat magazine gave a favorable review stating: "While Sparks' music includes jazz and world music sensibilities, the overall thrust to this set of original compositions (minus one) suggests a blend of folksy, backwoods fingerpicking that's strongly melodic and very intimate. The pacing is very good, and Sparks' fingerstyle, musical sleight-of-hand has one hearing classical technique one moment, flat-out blues the next."
Track listing
All compositions by Tim Sparks except "Eu So Quero Em Xodo" by
Dominguinhos
José Domingos de Morais (12 February 1941 – 23 July 2013), better known as Dominguinhos, was a Brazilian composer, accordionist and singer. His principal musical influences were the music of Luiz Gonzaga, Forró and in general the music of the ...
.
# "L'etoile de Mer" – 3:26
# "Waltz with a Mermaid" – 2:51
# "Cornbread and Baklava" – 5:35
# "La Soledad" – 4:02
# "Mr. Marques" – 3:30
# "Eu So Quero Em Xodo" – 8:35
# "Elegy for Max" – 2:56
# "Trap Hill Breakdown" – 3:57
# "One String Leads to Another" – 2:19
# "Pata Negra" – 4:44
# "The Amersterdam Cakewalk" – 3:45
# "A Lucky Hand" – 2:32
Personnel
*Tim Sparks - acoustic guitar
*
Dean Magraw
Dean Magraw is an American guitarist and composer.
Biography
Magraw was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and grew up in St. Paul. He began playing guitar at the age of 13. Magraw performed in a duo for many years with Peter Ostroushko and has also ...
- acoustic guitar on "Eu So Quero Em Xodo"
Production notes
*Produced by
Peter Finger
Peter Finger (born 11 October 1954) is a German acoustic fingerstyle guitarist, songwriter, composer and record producer. His most notable recordings include "Just Another Day in May", "Vielleicht Im Nächsten Leben", "Fanesca", "For You", "101 S ...
*Engineered by Peter Finger at Acoustic Music Studio in Osnabruck, Germany
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:One String Leads To Another
1999 albums
Tim Sparks albums