Album Notes

"A beautiful recording." - Todd Hallawell, 1997 Winfield Fingerpicking Guitar Champion
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Tom Lamson is an acoustic guitarist who blends folk, classical and jazz into a fresh, graceful fingerstyle reminiscent of Doug Smith and Ed Gerhard.

Tom's style has evolved from many influences over the years. He began playing rock n' roll and focused on progressive bands such as Yes and Traffic. He played lead and rhythm guitar in the "second loudest band" in Hampton Virginia which occasionally surprised its fans with the electric guitar version of Bach's Little Fugue in G Minor. Tom co-founded a jazz duo - guitar and female vocalist - in the mid 80's and played jazz standards with some Jimi Hendrix thrown in for good measure.

Tom fell in love with contemporary fingerstyle guitar after hearing Todd Hallawell (1997 Winfield Fingerpicking Guitar Champion) at the 1999 Healdsburg guitar festival. After purchasing an ethereal steel string guitar from master luthier Lance McCollum -"make it just like Todd's" - he threw away his guitar picks and concentrated on solo fingerstyle guitar. Tom's greatest thrill came when he went to hear Todd Hallawell and Dorian Michael in concert and was asked to be their opening act.

Summer Storm is Tom Lamson's first album and was engineered and produced by Tom in his home studio. From start to finish it is solo fingerstyle guitar. It includes 6 original songs, several melodic classical pieces, the obligatory Beatles tune, and his arrangement of "Letter From Home," written by his favorite jazz guitarist Pat Metheny.

"A little bit of gentle rain and some distant thunder. There's nothing more romantic than walking though the woods during a Summer Storm."