Private
Noah Parsonage (US,2006)****
Without knowing anything else from this guitarist other than that he’s from Oakland, California, it leaves me with my trying to describe the guitar style, which is hard for me as a non-guitarist reviewer. All tracks are melodic finger picking compositions which hints in the direction of guitarists like Harry Sacksioni and such. Other people might recall here John Fahey, but with Noah it is more or less the melody, and harmonious composition which seems to count more than digging and reshaping old traditions of folk, blues or whatever, although the tunes could have some spontaneously inspired overlapping elements. Overall each track is calm, peaceful, moody and unpretentious. “South Paw” has some original high pitched overtones, which I don’t know how they were produced.*
* "The song South Paw is played with both hands on the fret board. The left hand plays the melody by tapping on the treble strings, which is essentially a repeated series of hammer ons and pull offs. The right hand plays the bass line by hammering on the three bass strings with the side of of the index finger." Noah Parsonage
(PS. I used the music of Noah Parsonage in my radioshow next to the latest Bert Jansch, which fitted pretty well).
