Stephen Bennett
About Stephen Bennett
Whether playing his great-grandfather's harp guitar, his 1930 National Steel or a standard 6-string, Stephen Bennett is a musician to hear. His playing has won awards and critical praise. In live performance and on record, his diverse musical influences and interests are joined with a lifelong love affair with the sound of guitar strings.
Author Archive
Gigs in Connecticut
July 23rd, 2010
I’ll be at the SONO Festival in South Norwalk on August 8th and also just lined up a show at the Milford Center For The Arts on August 28th. To get a ticket for this show click here
Finally – a couple of shows in the state I now live in! More shows here are percolating, but for now, it’s a start!
Summer doings…
July 23rd, 2010
Greetings to the world. I’m clearly not so good at keeping up here as I haven’t written anything in a few months. Oh well…
The latest news, hmm, let’s see:
- The next cd project is rapidly nearing completion. This is the collection of rock tunes for harp guitar that I recorded a few months ago. It’s nearly ready to go to duplication. I’m very happy with how this has turned out and think you will be too. Tunes included are: Incense and Peppermints, Born To Be Wild, Light My Fire, White Room, A Whiter Shade Of Pale, The Court of the Crimson King, Soon, Teacher, Honky Tonk Women, Breathe/Time, Behind Blue Eyes, Can’t Find My Way Home, The Wind Cries Mary, and Theme For An Imaginary Western. This will be released on the Harp Guitar Music label run by my friend Gregg Miner of harpguitars.net fame.
- The recording phase of another cd project of my own material will be completed the first week of August. This will contain some tunes written and recorded before my surgeries of 2008 as well as some tunes written subsequently. I’ll be working with my friend and recording engineer par excellence, Kim Person once again.
- I’ve taught at a couple of summer guitar camps again this year. Was at Kaufman Kamp in Maryville, TN for the 6th time in June and taught for the first time at the Augusta Heritage Camps that are held in Elkins, WV a few weeks ago. I love teaching and had a great time at both of these camps!
- Was at the NAMM (National Association Of Music Merchants) convention in Nashville last month representing Holloway Harp Guitars. I think we made a real splash! And we’ll do it again at the January NAMM show in Los Angeles.
- While I was in Nashville, I also played at All-Star Guitar Night. This great evening of music has been put on by my friend Muriel Anderson for some years now and it was nice to be back! Here are some photos: http://truefire.com/galleries/all-star-guitar-night-summer-2010/
- I’ll be heading down to St. Petersburg next month to record a couple of dvds for harp guitar with my friends at TrueFire.com. It’s about time!
- There are a number of youtube videos of me that are out there. So far I have not actually put anything up myself. I have now. Nothing fancy, just me playing in front of my computer once in a while. The channel is sbharpguitar. I am already behind with that too – big surprise there!
- Other than that, I’ve just been writing and practicing and enjoying life.
Best wishes to all!
sb
New Magazine Appearances
April 23rd, 2010
I hope everyone is enjoying the beauty of Spring.
For those of you interested, I’m in a couple of guitar magazines currently out on newsstands. There’s an article on harp guitars in Spring Issue of The Fretboard Journal in which my name appears not unfavorably. And for those of you who speak or read French, there is an article on me in the new issue of Guitarist Acoustic (Issue #25).
sb
Recording for new cd finished!
March 30th, 2010
Greetings one and all,
I’m back home after a couple of weeks away. I spent the bulk of last week in the studio with my friend and intrepid recording engineer, Kim Person. Together we recorded the next cd. It’s my arrangements of an assortment of rock tunes from 1967-74. I picked tunes that made me want to play guitar. Most are classic tunes that everyone will recognize. This project will be released on the Harp Guitar Music label owned and operated by my friend Gregg Miner. And as that name suggests, this cd is nearly all harp guitar. Aside from re-recording my nearly 20 year old (really?) arrangement of You Really Got Me on a baritone guitar, I laid down tracks of a collection of my arrangements for harp guitar. Music from Strawberry Alarm Clock, Steppenwolf, Cream, The Doors, Blind Faith, The Rolling Stones, Mountain, Jethro Tull, Hendrix, The Who, Procul Harum, King Crimson, Pink Floyd and Yes are all on here. This was a lot of fun to record and it should be available sometime in the summer.
As fun as this was to do, it’s past time for me to get back to my own composing however, and that will be a focus for the immediate future.
I enjoyed my shows in NC and VA. My brother Jim’s piano playing is better than ever and it was fun to do another show with him. Thanks to all who came out!
Best to everyone,
sb
Harp Guitar Gatherings
January 7th, 2010
The Eighth Annual Harp Guitar Gathering is scheduled for November 12-14, 2010 in Indianapolis, Indiana. To have a look at our last event, held in Williamsburg, Virginia October 30 – November 1, 2009: click here Mind you, it was Halloween!
And to read a recent interview with my most illustrious partner in harp guitar misadventures, the owner and operator of harpguitars.net, the most prolific scholar of the harp guitar and a wonderful musician to boot, the one and only Gregg Miner: click here The interview is by Robert Silverstein with Music Web Express 3000
On the cover with TE in Japan!!!
January 7th, 2010
I’m very excited to announce that I’m currently on the cover of Acoustic Guitar Book, the premiere Japanese acoustic guitar magazine, for their December issue. And I’m there with my friend (and the source of much inspiration) Tommy Emmanuel, which makes it even more of a delight for me. Tommy’s arguably the most well known solo acoustic guitarist in the world and so this is a big deal, as these things go…
Acoustic Guitar Book only comes out twice a year and has prominently featured me several times in the past, but I’ve never been on the cover, so this is quite an honor! Tommy and I were in Japan this last October and played several shows together.
Acoustic Guitar Book cover – December 2009 Issue
The cover photo was taken by the editor, Mr. Suwa, in a wonderful guitar store in Tokyo. The shop is Blue-G and the proprietor is my friend Mr. Shimasue. Thanks to both of these men. And special thanks to Takeshi Hayakawa for helping to arrange this, as well as writing the article! “Acoustic Guitar Book 30, December 2009, Shinko Music”.
New CD – Good Wood – is out!
January 6th, 2010
My great-grandfather’s harp guitar (Big Mama) turned 100 in 2009 – and that’s reason to celebrate! I did so by traveling with this wonderful instrument around the world (3 trips to Canada, all around the US, Latvia, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Japan). Everywhere I went, people were amazed by the sound of this old harp guitar. I also recorded a cd of old tunes, ones that existed already in 1909 or that were written soon after. There’s nothing newer than 1916, other than one tune I wrote.
And, perhaps coolest of all is the fact that I was able to use actual recordings of Gonky (my great-grandfather’s nickname) made on a home reel to reel tape recorded in the early 1960’s on this new cd.
The amazing Kim Person did her usual outstanding job engineering this project – it sounds great!
Good Wood is available at the store page.
International Guitar Night Tour in US underway!
January 6th, 2010
I spent most of November touring in Canada with International Guitar Night. On January 13, the American leg of this tour kicks off in Baton Rouge. I am joined by Israeli nylon string guitarist Itamar Erez, German guitarist Lulo Reinhardt (yes, of that esteemed family) and of course, the founder of IGN – Brian Gore. It was a blast in Canada and I expect this next part of the tour will be great fun too. I hope to see you at one of these shows!
Just Plain Folks award for Best Solo Guitar Album
January 6th, 2010
On August 29, 2009, I accepted the award for Best Solo Guitar Album for my cd Reflections! I was also asked to perform at the 7 hour long, Grammy-style award show held at the WildHorse Saloon in Nashville. It was a great honor and a lot of fun! Congrats to my talented fellow nominees for their nominations as well. There were a zillion categories and nominees representing more than 100 countries and as I said – it was 7 hours long!
Welcome!
January 6th, 2010
Greetings and a Happy New Year to everyone! Thanks for visiting my site. There have been some changes in my life this last year and I’m looking forward to 2010. After neglecting it for some time, harpguitar.com has finally been rebuilt and is now live at the beginning of this new year. Thanks to my friends at TrueFire.com for their help with that!
All the best!!!
sb