Album Notes

Tim Pettigrew is an acoustic guitar instrumentalist who started playing guitar at the age of 10. His inspiration for playing acoustic guitar was sparked by listening to his brother George, eleven years older, who was an accomplished guitarist. Through his brother, he was exposed to country and western, acoustic blues, and acoustic jazz from an early age.

After learning basic chord progressions he spent many of his early years creating his own music. In his teens he found a well worn copy of Mickey Baker's Complete Course in Jazz Guitar that his brother had discarded. A few lessons in this book gave him a greatly appreciated understanding of more complicated chording styles.

Unlike many guitar players he has rarely desired to play popular songs or copy the works of current artists. Instead he has spent most of his time using the guitar as a tool to write music. Much of this work has been by painstaking trial and error.

In his early 30s he studied under the guidance of David Morgan, a local acoustic blues artist in Indianapolis, who introduced him to alternating bass and acoustic blues fingerpicking styles of the early 1900s, as well as ragtime guitar and open tunings.

A few years later he realized he had accumulated quite a few original instrumentals and decided it was time to have them copywrited. Inspired by a trip to Estes Park, Colorado in 1995, he named a ragtime instrumental after Fall River Road, which winds its way up between two majestic mountains in the park. Thus "Fall River Rag" was born. 23 other instrumentals were recorded in 1998 in a two week recording session, and his CD "Fall River Acoustic Guitar" was the result.

This collection of guitar instrumentals is a relaxing mix of acoustic blues, ragtime, folk and jazz instrumentals that are easy on the ear and soothing to the soul.