Tokio Uchida “One Kind Favor”
(TAB Guitar School, 2006)
Tokio Uchida 打田十紀夫--acoustic guitar
Guest player of bonus live tracks:
AKI—guitar
Komatsubara Shun 小松原 俊—guitar
Country blues fingerpicked on acoustic guitar has no better player in Japan than Tokio Uchida. His playing is stunning. The tone rings, the timing’s impeccable and the feeling deep and powerful. His fingerpicking technique is dazzling. He plays with compelling authority, but in an unassuming, unhurried way.
Uchida has toured and recorded with Stefan Grossman, America’s pre-eminent fingerpicking blues master, a student Reverend Gary Davis, and their playing, while different in many ways, shares the same dedication to the art of fingers, string and wood.
While Uchida has many CDs to his name, this Volume 5 is a great place to start to listen to his work. The songs here are all originals, except for two arrangements of standards and the playing is engaging on first listen, stunningly impressive on repeated listens. It is as if he wrote the songs to be as difficult to play as possible, and then just played them.
The recording is also exceptionally high quality so that the sound of the eight different guitars he plays on (one at a time), for about two tracks to showcase the special tone of each. The sound of each guitar comes out distinctly and yet it becomes impossible to follow the complexity of his playing as you sink into the sound. The flow and feel of every piece is marvelously appealing, complex inside, but simple and engaging. The two live recordings at the end show that the studio tracks are more than likely first takes, too!
Mostly, though, the playing really lets Uchida’s character come through. He’s not just dedicated to the music, with a sense of respect for the tradition of blues guitar, but has his own individual flair, too. This is an excellent collection of tunes from a master guitarist that is richly satisfying.
http://www.tab-guitar-school.co.jp
November 14, 2015