Today has been a very eclectic musical day. It started with a need to listen to some music without words since I was listening while writing. So I started with some acoustic guitar. The other night I downloaded one of my favorite acoustic guitarists and folksinger Brooks Williams new album Baby O!. When reading his biography I read that he was listed as one of the Top Acoustic Guitarist of All Time, actually, he is number 56 on the list. You can check out the complete list here. Anyway I lot of my favorite artists are listed! At the bottom of the list there are some listing suggestions and the last one is Tim Reynolds’ album Stream and that is where my musical day began! I tuned into Rhapsody and listened to a few tracks from the album and enjoyed what I heard! Soon I decided to check out another artist on the list Billy McLaughlin (23). I first heard McLaughlin on a Narada sampler and have his 1999 album Out of Hand 
in my collection. The album that I listened to briefly was his 2002 album Finally-Live. As I was writing this post, I went to his website and read that in 2001, Billy was diagnosed with Focal Dystonia, an incurable neuromuscular disease that rendered him unable to play his own music and that by 2002 Billy’s career was over. Then in 2006 he was doing the unthinkable and he started a comeback and was learning his songs left handed! You can read more about his story here at his website. I know I am going to! Anyway after the brief listen to Billy I looked at some of his contemporaries and checked out a Flamenco guitarist Armik and his most recent album 
Besos Armik was born in Iran of Armenian descent and from his website:
as a guitarist, he is one of the most adulated virtuosos of the Nuevo Flamenco genre, having attained this stature by virtue of his commanding presence among Billboard Magazine’s Top Ten New Age Artists of 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008 & 2009.
So much for my knowledge about acoustic guitar! As I listen again as I write this the album sounds really good and will get some extensive play! But wait there’s more I didn’t know! What’s that I hear? oh, it’s my wife saying “That’s an understatement!” Well after listening to Armik I checked out the guitar duo Strunz and Farah and their 2006 album Fantaseo. Strunz and Farah Jorge Strunz and Ardeshir Farah have been performng together since 1980 and have been at the top of the Billboard World Charts and been nominated for Grammys! Strunz is from Costa Rica and Farah is Iranian. The album is great and I will certainly be listening to more from these guys. Strunz has a new solo album Neotropical Nocturnes and I put that on the Zen V and listened to it tonight and the guitar playing is amazing!
So it was a great day of acoustic guitar and I have some great new artists to listen to!
Here’s a performance by Strunz and Farah!