Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau

Subject: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 02:06 PM

I picked up a Lenny Breau 'Boy Wonder' CD this morning. Knowing nothing about him, after listening to the CD in the store, I thought his recordings seemed really important. I know his name and music sound familiar.
There isn't much to read in the CD jacket.
Since I can not seem to find anything on the search, am I missing something? Are there threads or a website on Boy Wonder I should read?

Does anyone have anything to say about him?
I am listening to the CD right now, I just love it!
Very interesting in learning more about this 'Boy Wonder'

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: MK
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 02:09 PM

Amazing guitar player. One of the few able to intimidate Chet Atkins.

For more info go here.

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: MK
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 02:10 PM

...and here.

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: kendall
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 03:41 PM

I first met Lennie when he was a small boy singing such things as "I've got a lovly bunch of coconuts" on his fathers show. His father, Hal and his mother Betty are both members of the Maine country music assn. Bettys sister, Flo, is married to my cousin Genial Gene Hooper, also a member of MCMA. His brother Denny, is also a top notch guitarist and we often end up on the same stage. Real fine folks, every one. Its hard to imagine that Lennie will ever be replaced. He was one of a kind.

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 04:31 PM

Michael, thanks for the Lenny Breau site.
I just find this guy amazing.
It was interesting. I was sitting in Indigo drinking my coffee listening to 'Boy Wonder' not knowing who it was and I swore the kid working at the CD section had put on at least 3 CDs of different artists. I could not believe it when he told me it was all Lenny Breau's CD 'Boy Wonder'.

If I were to get another CD of Lenny's what would you guys suggest I buy next?
Tal Farlow & Lenny Breau 'Chance Meeting'
Lenny Breu 'Cabin Fever'
Lenny Breau with Dave Young 'Live At Bourbon St.'

Would greatly appreciate your help again,
Little Neo

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: pastorpest
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 06:49 PM

Get all the Lenny CDs you can: there are not that many.

In 1970 or 1971 my wife and I, living in Kingston, Ontario at the time, went to a coffee house to hear Lenny play. He had his trio with him. Only about 10 people showed up. Between sets with the trio, Lenny would pick up an acoustic guitar and do things that I have never seen before or since. He played Indian music, his impressions of Ravi Shankar: by stretching the strings over the frets he was able to play quarter tones. He crossed his legs and played a twelve string holding it straight up as it rested on his knee, and rocked the sound hole toward an instrument mike creating a crescendo on one note of his guitar. He imitated Bach counterpoint by plucking melodies with both hands at the same time while still playing chords.

We ten customers at that concert were blown away. He made a point of sitting with everyone there and visiting. The more we were impressed, the more he played. The small audience did not seem to disappoint him at all. He was simply more intimate. No concert in the thirty years since sticks in my memory like that one. And I am not even a guitar player.

My understanding is that he was used either by the University of Toronto music departemnt or the Royal Conservatory in Toronto to teach guitar so that his creative technique is not lost but lives on in others as part of his musical legacy.

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 08:26 PM

The story I remember hearing about Lennie Breau is that he originally learned to play guitar by listening to Chet Atkins records and duplicating the sounds he heard. What he didn't know was that Chet was one of the early exponents of multitracking and much of what Lennie was trying to imitate was overdubs. He simply didn't know that one guitar wasn't supposed to be able to do all that. Simply amazing!

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 10:21 PM

The first album of his that I heard was "Tubular Bells". Think it's available on CD. He used to play at the Riverboat in Toronto, although I have to admit his music wasn't appreciated that much by the folkies.

Rick

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: GUEST,Eugene
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 06:25 AM

A smaller Canadian TV network ran a new, very thorough and absolutely well-done, biography of Lennie twice in 1999.

To Kendall: In the mid-40's, when I was a young child growing up in a village near Moncton, our main radio station was CFCY, Charlottetown. "Cowboy" Gene Hooper, as he sang in his theme song and Don Messer were mainstays of the station. And, every year, Hal Lonepine and Betty would put on a show in our little village hall. That was a very big event in our life.

I am currently taking fiddle lessons (A life-long dream) at Peter Dawson's place in Ottawa. What a coincidence!! Peter was the fiddler in Hal's group. We have had some good talks about those days.

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: kendall
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 12:31 PM

There really is no accounting for taste. Lenny did a concert in Machias Maine at the University of Maine at Machias. Shortly afterwards, I did a performance there, and I drew a bigger crowd than he did.

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 12:48 PM

Why is it, that if Lenny Breau being such a good guitar player, was not well known or well received by the public?
If he developed his own style of guitar playing, farther beyond the Travis-Atkins style, and more of a one band jazz trio concept, why is this not well known?
If he had not died at an early age of 43, would he have become more of a legend today?
Is being a good guitarist seen much differently than someone who creates a foundation for new styles of guitar playing such as Lead Belly?

I find it puzzling. I can understand his skills not being understood by the general public, but I would have thought Lenny Breau would be known as a big name amongst the other good guitar players.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: kendall
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 05:54 PM

So many great people went unnoticed until they were dead

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: pastorpest
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 06:02 PM

Lenny was not better known because he resisted being "commercial". In the days of vinyl he had two LPs on a mainline label. When I talked to him at the coffee house in Kingston about the recordings he expressed his frustration with the editing and the restrictions placed on him. So in an age of vinyl he had to be independent to do what he wanted. He willingly payed the price of small audiences.

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: GUEST,Purity
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 07:02 PM

What can this have to do with folk music? It is a tiresome thing to be exposed to this tripe at a site that is folk and blues only. This is not folk/blues. This is boring and those who push it in this place are misguided.

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: GUEST,Pustule
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 08:12 PM

¡¡PUSTULE ALERT !!

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: Mike Regenstreif
Date: 03 Apr 00 - 09:52 AM

The "Boy Wonder" CD that started this thread was recorded when Lenny was all of 15 years old.

For "Purity's" benefit, the album does include much folk and blues material: "John Henry," "Corrina, Corrina," "Cannonball Rag," etc. I know its folk music 'cause I've heard it on my own radio show .

The story about Lenny learning to play by listening to Chet Atkins records without knowing that Chet was multitracking is probably a myth. I've hearing the same story for 30 years about several other guitarists including Guy Van Duser and Jerry Ricks. Most of Lenny's family were/are musicians and that's where his playing was rooted.

Lenny's playing has always been well-known among musicians. "Boy Wonder" came out about the same time as Kate & Anna McGarrigle's "The McGarrigle Hour." Both albums include "Alice Blue Gown." As a vocal on the McGarrigle album and an instrumental on the Breau. I mentioned that to Kate & Anna and both were quite familiar with Lenny's history, going back to his family's early country music show.

Probably the main reasons that Lenny never became well-known publicly were his demons and self-destructive addictions.

Mike Regenstreif

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: kendall
Date: 03 Apr 00 - 11:44 AM

Bingo Mike

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: Justa Picker
Date: 20 Apr 01 - 10:25 PM

I too, just acquired this album.

I especially like the first 8 cuts - the all acoustic, travis style pickin' of some of Merle's tunes. He plays them with the same dedication as Merle, but so much cleaner. Runs I'd been trying to figure out from Merle records, were now apparent to me.

When you witness THAT MUCH TALENT at 15!!, it almost trivializes what we mere "mortals" have been trying to achieve our entire lives...

...and will never even get close.

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 20 Apr 01 - 11:28 PM

Chet Atkins considered Lenny to be "the best".

Do you know all those threads we have that start out asking who "The best guitarist is" and always end up being a list of the "most famous" instead?

You'll see the names Lenny Breau, Tuck Andress, Danny Gatton and Roy Buchanan among the "stars". THESE were the real best "all round" pickers. None of 'em wanted the hassles of being stars.

Rick

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: MAV
Date: 20 Apr 01 - 11:34 PM

Tubular Bells?

The theme song from "The Exorcist"? I thought that was by Mike Oldfield or something like that.

mav out

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Apr 01 - 04:47 PM

There is a site somewhere with some very thorough transcriptions of Lenny's stuff--I can't find the link though, maybe Michael has it--even if you are not inclined to try to play them they are worth looking at--

I would suggest that the album with Tal Farlow would be pretty much a must listen, he was another guitar great--

As to why not more famous? Guitar players, at least the jazz oriented ones, have listened to him for years--but they aren't enough of us to make anybody rich--the same was true for many of the other true jazz greats--I am told that when Coltrane played in Philly, you could always find a seat at the bar--

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 21 Apr 01 - 05:36 PM

Cheez Mav! Did I screw up. "Five o'clock Bells". Think that was the title of it...or maybe it WAS Tubular Bells, and Lenny hadn't heard of Mike Oldfield!

Thanks for catching that one.

Rick

Subject: RE: Wanting To Know More About Lenny Breau
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 21 Apr 01 - 05:41 PM

I was recently listening to a tape of the faculty concert from the 1986 Puget Sound Guitar Workshop. One of the performers was another wonderful but little known fingerstyle guitarist, John Knowles. He played an exquisite piece that he introduced by saying, "This is one I wrote when my friend Lenny Breau died. It's called 'Waltz For Ever'". John is not flashy, but plays with impeccable taste and feeling. Worth hearing if you ever get the chance.
And thanks for calling my attention to Lenny's music, Bonnie--now I'll have to search out that CD.

Aloha,
Mark