Date: Fri 07-May-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Adrian-Legg-Towne-Crier

Full Text:

A Very Welcome Return For Adrian Legg

(with cuts)

BY SHANNON HICKS

PAWLING, N.Y. -- It is next to impossible to have a boring conversation with

the musician Adrian Legg.

One minute the discussion concerns his new album, another masterpiece, this

one called fingers and thumbs . Within minutes, the conversation can cover

everything from Legg's passion for photography and a troublesome broken nail

to the problems of wearing a short shirt during a performance (it rides up in

the back, he confided recently), and even the continuing problem Legg has of

getting electric shocks every time he gets out of his American rental car.

Conversations with Adrian Legg are never dull. They are animated,

far-reaching, extremely enjoyable and intelligent. So are his albums, which

fans have been playing endlessly for the past decade.

Adrian Legg is, as anyone can tell you even after the most brief of

introductions to his music, a genius on the guitar. "The guitar is the most

versatile instrument in the world, and nobody demonstrates this better than

Adrian Legg," Acoustic Guitar magazine once wrote about him. Legg performs

things on his guitar, entire compositions that are beyond belief, that have

only been imagined before being captured in his recordings.

fingers and thumbs is a collection of ten songs and one very macabre poem

called "Tiddles." The poem is Legg's acknowledgement that his fans enjoy his

tales and anecdotes nearly as much as the music he performs, which seems

pretty seamless to most listeners.

"I quite like it, actually," Legg said of the new album last week. It was the

morning after a pair of shows in upstate New York, and he was beginning to

deal with what would turn into a week-long ordeal with a nail that had split

in the middle of one of the shows.

"I normally hate my records. It takes years before I forget the wrong notes."

This release, his second on the Red House label, he is enjoying right out of

the gate.

Watching Legg perform is as magical as hearing his work on CD. He doesn't just

play the guitar, he converses with it. His songs tell stories with characters

that come alive each time he plays them.

His fingers move up and down the neck of his guitar, sometimes effortlessly

and other times with careful concentration. Legg performs on an odd-looking

little thing that is a prototype he developed with the guitar makers at

Ovation. According to some information in a recent concert handout, it is a

shallow-bodied guitar with an acoustic chamber, its style reminiscent of the

old Ovation Breadwinner.

However odd-looking the instrument may be, the sounds that come out of it are

pure joy. Legg actually tunes and re-tunes his strings as he plays, which in

part explains some of the unique music he produces. The talent hidden within

his ten fingers helps explain the rest of the magic.

The guitarist returned on May 1 to Towne Crier Cafe, a club just over the

Connecticut-New York state line, performing for a crowd that didn't mind

waiting until nearly 10 pm for his appearance. Judging by the anticipation

rippling through the crowd prior to Legg's appearance on the small stage, and

even from the reaction to every note he created and all the stories he told

once he began performing, Legg's audience would have happily waited another

hour or two just to be in the room with him.

Legg's return to Towne Crier was punctuated with anecdote after anecdote. He

spent nearly as much time weaving his spell verbally as he did actually

playing the guitar, and the audience ate up every bit of it. He was still

talking about his broken nail minutes before taking the stage, and mentioned

he had been playing with a Crazy Glue and powder formulation all week to try

to get it straightened out.

On stage, there was a new story about his just-acquired bifocals, and there

was the story many had heard before about Legg and his wife and the first time

they held what he calls "a private party for two." The song "The Irish Girl"

was a result of that party, he said, not because of his wife's heritage but

because it happened in Dublin.

Raconteur that he is, Legg took the audience of about 100 people and made each

of them feel as if he was telling every one of his stories to them personally,

and for the first time. His stories weren't always direct. The songs weren't

all from the new album.

In his captivating and roundabout way, though, Legg delivered a concert of

songs and stories that lived up to all expectations, broken nail and all.