Album Notes

Steve Hunter started playing guitar when he was 8 years old and has dedicated his life to music. His professional career began in the winter of 1971 when he joined a band called ‘Detroit featuring Mitch Ryder’. With that band he recorded his first ever album and the producer of that album was Bob Ezrin.

A mutual respect developed almost immediately between Bob and Steve and over the course of the next few years they worked on several projects together including 4 Alice Cooper albums, Peter Gabriel’s first solo album which included ‘Solsbury Hill’, and Lou Reed’s ‘Berlin’ album. He later toured with all of the above-mentioned artists as well as touring and/or recording with Julian Lennon, performed with Bette Midler in the movie ‘The Rose’, co-wrote and recorded songs with David Lee Roth, toured and recorded with Tracy Chapman and was involved in scoring films and music production.

Along the way he also recorded two solo albums, the first being ‘Swept Away’ with Ezrin producing and the second self-produced album called ‘The Deacon’. Steve describes himself as a blue collar guitar man who continues to love and learn his craft.

In late '06 Steve joined up with Lou Reed again to do a live version of Lou's landmark album ‘Berlin’ from which there is a live DVD release due for September 16th 08. He also joined Lou on an US East Coast tour earlier this year and has recently completed a further ‘Berlin’ European tour.

This CD is a departure from Steve’s rock past but encompasses his unique style of blues and finger picking, with his ever present passion for music and with Bob Ezrin as Executive Producer. ‘Hymns for Guitar’ is Steve’s acoustic guitar arrangements of some of his favorite old American hymns. Many of these great melodies were written in the mid 1800s. “When I was a very little boy....maybe 4 or 5 years old...my grandmother would occasionally take me to Sunday church with her. I always enjoyed the sound of people gently and quietly singing those beautiful old hymns. My main goal was to try to recreate the warm, peaceful sound with acoustic guitars that I had heard as a boy in church”.

A guitar tab book of Steve's Hymn arrangements taken from the CD is in the pipeline from Cherry Lane Music Pub.

Robert Silvertstein for 20th Century Guitar:
‘Hymns For Guitar’ is a pastoral sounding change of pace album from Rock legend Steve Hunter. Hunter, who has played his trademark rock guitar for icons like Lou Reed and Alice Cooper , tones down his sound here and the results are as rustic and appealing as anything created by guitar icons like England’s Martin Simpson and John Fahey.