Adrian Legg Biography

British guitarist Adrian Legg was born in Hackney, East London. He studied the oboe as a child but in teenage years his interest shifted to the guitar. Legg plays fingerstyle guitar, mixing an alternating-bass style with harmonics, banjo-peg retuning and single or double-string bending. Often he will play a piece entirely in arpeggios similar to a classical guitar style. He makes extensive use of altered tunings and capos.

More recently, Legg has pioneered the use of modelling technology and midi for fingerstyle guitar. His 2004 album Inheritance features extensive use of guitar synthesisers and modelled guitar sounds, in contrast to the previous more acoustic Guitar Bones.

In the early '70s, Legg won both the composition and performance sections of a competition run by the now defunct Guitar magazine, published by Musical New Services of Denmark Street, which lead to his being asked to contribute articles to the magazine. From then on, his technical flair produced a stream of articles in UK music press in the '70s and early '80s, culminating in the Kaye and Ward book "Customising Your Electric Guitar", 1981. He spent from 1979 to 1981 as a technician at Rose, Morris Ltd., who then handled Marshall amplification, Ovation Guitar and Takamine guitars, and designed original and well-reviewed passive circuits for the then relaunched Vox guitars. In 1990, he was involved in the prototyping and launch of the highly successful Trace Acoustic amplifiers, and continues to maintain technical relationships with the musical instrument industry.

Legg has more than lived up to the expectations stirred by an ongoing avalanche of praise from critics, fans, top guitar mags and peers alike.

The accolades have come nonstop since Legg's first US release Guitars and Other Cathedrals in 1990, tweaking the ears of guitar fans everywhere. Over the years, he’s played at the Montreux Jazz Festival and toured with Richard Thompson, David Lindley, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson and as part of the G3 Tour featuring Satriani, Johnson and Favored Nations founder Steve Vai.

He’s also shared the wealth of his talent and experience with teaching DVD's, videos and books. In recent years, he has also been a commentator at large for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, and even more recently, regular listeners have heard his guitar versions of the show’s theme music.

As popular as his catalog of recordings is, Legg’s true home is onstage. “Playing live is the whole point,” he says. “Everyone makes a journey, an effort; we all come together – me, the audience, the people who run the venue – to share this wonderful, universal, human emotional interaction. This is where music lives.”