Album Notes

Gadfly Records is proud to announce the release of Blu di Genova, the new release from world-class flatpicking guitarist Beppe Gambetta.

Gambetta, an Italian master guitarist, has been well-known in the music world for two decades. On this new album - his tribute to the connections of his old-world homelands and America's new world - he teams up with other first-rate musicians, including Dan Crary and Gene Parsons. The mostly-instrumental CD features three vocal cuts, one of them a cover of Norman Blake's "Church Street Blues." The CD also includes a video of the opening cut, "On the Road With Mama," and all the software needed to view it.

Born in Genoa, Italy, Beppe began his musical training in a classical orchestra before drawing on traditional European and American guitar techniques to develop his own original style. In 1977, he formed the acclaimed Italian bluegrass band Red Wine. Later as a dynamic solo performer he toured Europe, America, Canada, and Australia while rediscovering, teaching and promoting flatpicking and other great, but less known, guitar forms.

Beppe has collaborated with masters of the acoustic scene (Gene Parsons, Tony Trischka and many others) on ambitious projects such as reviving and contemporizing the energy of the "brother" duets with guitar master Dan Crary. Along with Carlo Aonzo, mandolin player from La Scala Orchestra in Milan, Beppe has conducted extensive interviews as part of his comprehensive study and revival of the musical forms present in Italy at the start of the twentieth century. The result of this research was the production of two acclaimed albums, Serenata and Traversata (recorded with American mandolin legend David Grisman)