8. Sir Richard BishopSalvador Kali
Besides just putting Corsano and Rick on the list as a sort of secret message to those guys to say, ‘Hey, let’s get the band back together,’ I was a really big Sun City Girls fan when this record came out, and I knew that Rick was an amazing guitar player, but I didn’t know how amazing he was. And then this record came out and he does all those different styles, but it doesn’t really sound like pastiche, and also it doesn’t sound like he’s trying to show off all of his different techniques. He was able to pull all of these different styles together in a style that’s just Rick Bishop. And at the time, There were a lot of people finger picking, and fingerstyle was very popular in the underground and still is. I mean fingerstyle is way more popular than people who actually use a pick now as far as solo guitar players go, and Rick’s one of the few in the underground that is a master with the pick, and his alternate picking. Being in a band with him, when I finally got in Rangda with him, trying to learn how to play guitar in that style, it was very difficult. It was a very hard lesson to try to figure out how to pick every note because I would do a lot of legato and sliding and stuff in order to play them, and Rick is picking every single note. So that’s kind of unique in a way. But this record became a template for me of how to make an acoustic guitar record in a way where you focus more on atmosphere. It was a very big record for me when it first came out, and it still is.
