Album Notes

SLO County's guitar hero delivers the goods on a new CD.

Guy budd is to guitar playing what Jesus is to saving the faithful, what Buddha is to peaceful meditation, what I am to poorly constructed analogies... yes, people, he's that good. And he's got a great new album called "Woke Up Dreaming," which features eight diverse tunes and some very tight packaging.

"The album art work is as fun as the music, all part and parcel of the whole CD," said the sage guitar slinger recently. "Making it was a real learning experience. I consciously went the diversity route rather than doing 101 blues shuffles. I mean, lets paint the whole rainbow here."

Budd is the maser of Texas-style blues, of Jimi Hendrix-style blues rock, of tone poems, deep soul stylish jazz. In short, he's the man when it comes to guitar playing. What's really great about the album is it also demonstrates Budd's vocal talents, which are blossoming like a sunflower.

I was all guitar-focused and singing came second, but in the last couple years I've really worked at it, "said Budd of his burgeoning vocal prowess." "I think what I learned is you have to find your own voice and relax and be yourself. A lot of times you're dealing with the influence thing, trying to sound like this or that. That can be helpful, mentoring off it, but eventually you need to find your own style. Too much study is not a good thing."

One of the thematic elements of this new recording is tapping into the internal wisdom residing in us all, going on instinct rather than over thinking things. It's all about experiencing living...being.

"The whole hyper-education thing defines to many people; it's endemic to our culture. That's what this project is about. The title, "Woke Up Dreaming" is about that mystery and mysticism, simply dreaming, the Zen of being, that's inside all of us all the time. It's about that moment between awakening and sleep, the moment when you see eternity, when you see things as they actually are. Hopefully this music will share moments like that with the listener. The other side is there's a really juicy love song on the album, some social commentary. It's all there."