Simply put, Mark has been my musical hero since the mid-70's bar none. I ordered Acoustic Inventions 3 months ago and it is a constant play in my truck's CD player when I am traveling. Mark's creativity and talent is so evident with every song. With each play, I hear something different about his playing that I wished I could play but usually wind up just listening and enjoying.

I want to thank Mark for gracefully including the "Swing low" TAB as a bonus with my order. I merged the arrg't with Rick Foster's one (Fingerstyle guitar magazine #65) and it has become one of my favorites. Actually Mark and Rick worked the arrg't together in the early 80's Thanks again Mark for your wonderful CD!

Longtime session ace and Nashville mainstay Mark Casstevens’s new solo CD sits right at the intersection of fingerstyle chops and pop sensibilities—no surprise given that his brief liner notes cite his twin sources of inspiration as his peers in the Music City studio scene and the Chet Atkins/Jerry Reed axis. The result is an instrumental record that plays as a collection of great songs, yet grabs your guitar-playing ear from the first note and never lets go. True to the Chet/Jerry school, Casstevens mainly features his nylon-string guitar, accompanied by his own overdubbed bass parts, light percussion, the occasional hi-hat or kick drum, and a few guest turns on fiddle and accordion. The deft arrangements serve Casstevens’s writing well while remaining transparent enough to let his confident, relaxed fingerstyle arrangements shine through. “Sour Mash Rag,” “Gladrags,” “Old Mother Hubbard,” and the steel-string “All Thumbs” come across as virtually solo tunes—ragtime as imagined through a relaxed, Atkinsesque filter. On the bluesier “Okefenokee Blues” and “Underground Railroad,” Casstevens lets out more of his award-winning multi-instrumental side, laying down tasty harmonica, slide, and resophonic guitar. Yet even then, the nylon-string soon comes roaring back, doing the kind of funky things that make guitar players (and even regular people) grin and reach for the replay button. Casstevens wrote all the tunes except for “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”; his low-down, witty take on the classic spiritual finds room for nylon-string chord substitutions and walking-bass moves, a clawhammer banjo breakdown, and a perfectly justifiable Stevie Wonder quote all within three minutes and ten seconds

You’ve heard his work -- many, many times. And you’ve enjoyed his behind-the-scenes' playing, even if you didn’t know who it was. But quintessential Nashville session artist Mark Casstevens now allows a few photons of the spotlight to shine his way with his solo collection, "Acoustic Inventions". Casstevens’ credits include playing on 98 singles that have hit the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts, accompanying more than 250 different artists along the way. This 13-track disc shows why this multi-instrumentalist fingerstyle marvel is in such demand. A summer-breeze warm tone and gossamer touch bring his compositions to life. But while adept on nylon and steel string guitars, harmonica, banjo, mandolin, bass and keyboard, his work on nylon string stands out. "Claire" and "Tracy" are lovely melodies, and "Gladrags" quietly wraps itself around your ears. Casstevens adds a few session pals of his own to flesh out the tracks, and they rightly take a low-key supporting role. If Casstevens can be faulted, it is his enthusiasm to display too much of his considerable talent, as with his arrangement of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", in which he takes up guitar, bass, harmonica and banjo, perhaps to the detriment of the soul of the tune. Generally, however, he leaves us wanting more, not less, especially of that sweet guitar work. Casstevens thoughtfully offers some of his arrangements in tab form through his website.