The Argenta Arts Foundation and Finger Food Productions present world class guitarists on the third Thursday of every month (except December). The series includes artists from around the world including multiple Grammy Award winners in an intimate theater providing a remarkable musical experience. Solo guitar concert by Arkansas native Richard Leo Johnson featuring his unique brand of guitar music
Doors open at 7:00 p.m., Show begins at 7:30 p.m.
The Joint
301 Main Street, Ste. 203, Argenta
Tickets $25, general admission
Richard Leo Johnson is one of the most innovative and
inspired acoustic guitarists on the current American music scene. Johnson’s
style, characterized by complexity, exhilarating speed, and hauntingly
unfamiliar harmonies created through ‘found’ tunings, marks this self-taught
player apart. Richard was raised in America’s deep South, in a small Arkansas
town in the Mississippi Delta. A good indication of what Richard is about is
captured when he recalls that his “real jumping off point” was a home-made
cassette he received as a teenager, which featured The Mahavishnu Orchestra’s
Inner Mounting Flame on one side, and Leo Kottke’s Greenhouse on the other; “I
thought both sides were by the same artist! The initial impact was that it was
somehow possible to make something happen that fused the linear liquidity of
McLaughlin and the dense harmonic structure and drive of Kottke.” Practicing
incessantly on his own, Johnson developed an idiosyncratic playing style which
combined plucking and strumming, alternating between 6, 12, and 18 strings (a
2-necked McCullum guitar with 6 and 12 strings), using all parts of the guitar,
and employing 30 tunings he devised. The Richard Leo Johnson Trio is his first
ever 'band' and it fuses elements of Americana, rock, ambient and folk music
with the sensibilities of classical color and structure, reflecting an
eclectic, modern outlook on chamber music. With the collaboration of the
classically trained and former symphony musicians Andrew Ripley (wind
instruments and electronics) and Ricardo A. Ochoa (strings and theremin),
Richard Leo Johnson brings a fresh new focus and additional instrumental
orchestrations to his own brand of guitar-centric instrumental poetry, making
for a music that is both beautiful and deep.