On The Beat - Episode 830 - Weekly Guitar Video News Wrap Up November 21, 2025
November 21, 2025
This week's path, or detour if you like, headed back into the past as John Renbourn was on my mind. Ten years after we lost him he popped up big time when a student I rarely see came in to work on Sandwood Down To Kyle, a piece from his Ship Of Fools album and one he played live frequently. That inspired me to put a lesson together on it, along with Snap A Little Owl, which I had been meaning to get to for years. Further down that path, I went back to listen to the recording from our first concert back in 1999. I figured it needed to be shared with the TG Community and it is now included as an attachment with the lesson on Sandwood. It also led to a new pack of his tunes, alone with some by his cronies and contemporaries. These are some of the most challenging pieces we have at TG but I am sure many folks will enjoy working on them.
A sideline to this thread is that we now have a great pack of songs that are near and dear to my heart - John Renbourn & Friends, which includes a bonus audio download of the first concert we played together at Montalvo in 1999. It is attached to the Sandwood Down To Kyle lesson.
Neil
Revisiting my thoughts about John from 10 years ago-
Part 1 starts with the back story, how I became aware of John’s music and how it influenced and affected me. This ranges from the 1970’s up to the date I met him and he gave a couple of workshops for my students at Joplin & Sweeney Music in September 1998.
Part 2 picks up with details on the two workshops and making a plan to do a concert together. We scheduled two for May 5 and 6 the next year, 1999. During those months I was inspired to get back to playing and writing new pieces in anticipation of the milestone occasion.
Part 3 starts with memories of May 5, 1999, a truly bitter-sweet day. The two concerts we did changed my life and started a whole new series of events and directions that even affected the inception of TotallyGuitars in 2008. I probably last saw John in 2005 or so but we stayed in touch by phone and email over the next 10 years.