Laurence Juber’s Wind Beneath the Wings

Legendary acoustic guitarist Laurence Juber’s wind beneath Paul McCartney’s WINGS blows mighty fierce. This two time Grammy®-Winner and lead guitarist in WINGS has been busy traveling to promote his new CD released today, LJ Can’t Stop Playing The Beatles along with his recent Book, GUITAR WITH WINGS: A Photographic Memoir. He flew into the Big Apple Wednesday night for an intimate chat with Hudson Union Society for its members including a 90 minute acoustic performance held at New York City’s The Cornell Club.

Laurence Juber, lead guitarist for Paul McCartney’s WINGS at Hudson Union Society Event 3/1/17. (c) Justin Hoch

The Inside Scoop

Laurence Juber (LJ) explains to the audience how classical music — particularly Bach — had a profound influence on the Beatles, on LJ himself and their music. The beloved Beatles classic Blackbird is a prime example. The song has its roots in Bach; just the accompany part. The melody is something else, says LJ.

LJ demonstrates his process to create a melody rooted in classical music.

One of the techniques that LJ uses to create a melody rooted in classical is called DADGAD. It’s where he changes the guitar tuning by dropping the bottom string and the top C strings on the guitar down a whole set.

The DAGDAD process or type of tuning is used by Keltic guitar players as well. According to LJ, one interesting root that it took was that it got used by the iconic Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin). Their song Kashmir is in this tuning.

Laurence Juber’s newest CD is actually the third of a Beatles music series that began in 2000. Around that time, LJ had been doing a few arrangements of Beatles tunes, and people kept asking him to do a whole album. But the fingerstyle guitar master wanted to focus on composing. That’s when his wife Hope, urged him to record an album of Beatles tunes – if not for anybody else, then for her — so she could listen to it in her car. “In that case,” she said, “if you want to produce it, then I will do it.”

And, from his wife’s urging, out came LJ Plays The Beatles! (2000); followed by LJ Plays the Beatles Volume 2 (2010) and his newest LJ Can’t Stop Playing The Beatles (2017).

Acoustic Guitar Magazine voted LJ Plays The Beatles one of the top 10 all time acoustic guitar albums.

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