The guitarists who have reached me the most are Leo Kottke, John McLaughlin, John Renbourn and Mike Oldfield. The musicians who have been my navigational stars are Atahualpa Yupanqui, Mozart and Guillermo Arevalo.
Blessings to them all.
Sounds Like
John Renbourn
Mike Oldfield
John McLaughlin
Atahualpa Yupanqui
Michael Hedges
Pierre BenSusan
35 years ago I avoided choosing to be a professional musician when I began playing, as I did not want to harness the music with earning me a living. Music became part of my spiritual path.
After twenty years of playing I composed two songs, and at the same time encountered the ceremonial traditions of the Amazon and their connection to the spirits of nature. I played another twelve years with no further composing before I met Guillermo Arevalo, a Master healer from the Shipibo culture in Peru, and working with him confirmed for me the process of human exchange with the spirits of nature. It also triggered a sixteen -month wave of composition, recorded in my first two CDs. I call this body of work the Medicine Path, and play it as a form of prayer. A second body of writing has followed, more outward and sky-filling, called Acoustic Psychedelic Chill. I always play it after the Medicine Path :-).
I was born in 1954 and raised in a remote logging and fishing community in the coastal forest of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. We had no road, no telephone or television, no churches or restaurants. We did have ocean, forest and sky, and all the birds, animals and fish in them. This experience is without a doubt the foundation of the music I work with.
If you are interested in the approach I have learned, I will be conducting a three-day workshop in August at an incredible retreat centre called Hollyhock. Details are here.
Thanks so much for the add!! And for consciously combining spirit with music. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the guys' music - different flavour but spirit is present.
greetings from Idaho / USA....thank you so much for your music and your friendship.....I love BC....spent from 79-82 touring around that country....daniel
Michael - Hi! Thank you for accepting my invitation to be friends... I hope you will enjoy my occasional poetic offerings as much as I have been enjoying your work...
Hi Michael, Thanks for an absolutely transporting evening. The energy, the flow, the soundscape created. Pure magic. Cheers & Thanks, Roger. PS: Are you going to Timbuktu?
Hello, my friend Michael ! I hope that it is all good with you ! I..m very late to make a contact because I made a reform in the place that I am liveing now. Everything is upside-down.... A radical, but very good change for us. The Internet arrived today and now we can keep contact. great hug Cyro Bittencourt
Happy New year Michael, Sorry for the silence but I've been in hospital for the past weeks all is well now. I just need a little tune up :-) All the best, John
