Whether jamming on full-blown electric fusion or performing intimate acoustic instrumentals, Greg Smith’s love of the guitar always shines through. His 2005 CD, Above The Clouds rocked with a fine selection of easy grooving sounds and lots of straight ahead guitar playing and Smith’s 2007 CD of acoustic music makes for an interesting change of pace. Beyond: Solo Acoustic Guitar is played with the same finesse as Above The Clouds, but as the title intends, the 17 tracks here feature Smith laying down acoustic instrumentals of all time biggest pop tunes including “Every Breath You Take,” “Yesterday,” “Here Comes The Sun,” Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” and “My Cheri Amour” along with fresh Smith takes on jazz classics such as “Summertime” and “Darn That Dream” and more. Commenting on his guitars he made the CD with, Smith adds ‘I used the Django model on most of the cuts and I also used my Taylor on 3 tunes. I like the sound of both instruments each for their different qualities. I do still play a lot of electric guitar gigs, using my arch top, and my Ibanez Scofield model for the more fusion and rock oriented gigs.’ Smith’s instrumental guitar logic transcends genres and types of music, like vocal or instrumental, and in the solo setting his love the six string acoustic sound comes through loud and clear. On getting his clean studio sound, Smith further says, ‘I have a great engineer, Tony Rockliff, who really knows how to capture the exact sounds I'm after. He has a beautiful room for recording acoustic instruments in that brought my instruments to life” Regarding why he went from recording an electric jazz group CD to the solo acoustic format Smith formulates, ‘I like to put together arrangements the are pretty open for improv and I'll come up with new intros and endings, do solos, modulate, take it outside and back, etc. That's the beauty of solo gigs, I can go in any direction I want to at any given moment, harmonically, rhythmically and melodically.’ www.gregsmithguitar.com

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