and his Eclectric String Quartet
Saturday, February 11, 2012
7:30 p.m.,
Centennial Auditorium,
Staples
“You may swear Billy McLaughlin is two of the greatest acoustic guitarists you’ve ever heard,” said the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. “It’s amazing that such an extensive sound comes from one instrument,” said the Chicago Sun Times.
His story is almost as inspiring as his music. Billy McLaughlin is recognized as an innovative performer and composer who embraces the advantages of acoustic guitar amplification, unorthodox techniques and altered tunings while celebrating a gift for melody. His enormous yet fluid acoustic guitar tone has carried him around the world, to Billboard’s Top-Ten Chart, and most recently through a devastating medical disorder called focal dystonia. McLaughlin has had to re-learn the guitar left-handed and is in the early stages of what might be described as “one of the great musical-comeback stories of all time.” His story is the subject of an award-winning documentary film called Changing Keys – Billy McLaughlin and the Mysteries of Dystonia.”
McLaughlin left his native Minnesota and his teenage rock band to study guitar at the University of Southern California where he graduated with honors. He developed a signature technique that enabled him to create a harp-like effect on the acoustic guitar. This unusual approach led Billy to extensive national touring, earning multiple NACA Campus Entertainer awards and a multi-album international contract with Virgin Records Narada whose first release, Fingerdance, peaked at #7 on the Billboard charts. |
Watch him on the CBS Early Show |
