Cali Custom Guitars

You'll remember Joel Brown from all those wonderful discs with the late Bill Crofut from Albany's “early years.” Now he's back with a delightful Christmas disc with his celebrated friends and family. This album was inspired by a concert and TV show featuring Brown's arrangements of Christmas tunes for a student guitar ensemble. It was such a success that he was encouraged to create this recording. All right, it took more than a decade but it was worth the wait! As with those great Crofut albums, the arrangements are jazzy, folksy and often times plain-old traditional. Of course you've heard these tunes a lot of times in the past, but they've never sounded so fresh as they do here. As Joel writes, “Christmas music has always been my favorite part of the holiday season. I still feel a flood of excitement and joy when I think of standing in our little hometown church singing in unison with family and friends. I hope the music on this recording will bring some of that same feeling to you. Merry Christmas!”

Two-part harmonies and acoustic guitars bring back memories of '56 Chevys, drive-in movies, sock hops, tube radios, and 45 RPM records.

The Cedar and Spruce Guitar Quartet originates from Ontario, Canada. They are one of Canada's foremost performing guitar quartets. The ensemble performs a blend of traditional guitar quartet favourites along with a sampling of musical styles from around the world. In their live performances they are always full of surprises as they move between genres that range from transcriptions of famous classical pieces to a pot-pourri of bluegrass, jazz, latin, celtic and other world music styles. Their debut CD was digitally recorded and mastered at Alan Shoesmith's home studio in Maple, Ontario. The CD makes an attempt to capture the intimate spirit of the group while showcasing the groups high level of musical perfection. Undoubtedly, guitar players, fans of guitar music and the average music listener will all find something to appreciate on this debut CD by one of Canada's most exciting guitar ensembles.

Spruce top. Catalpa back, sides and neck. Rosewood fingerboard and bridge. Rosette sound hole. Natural high gloss finish. Active pre-amp. 1/4" and XLR outputs. Die cast nickel machine heads.

Full-size folk guitar with spruce top mahogany back/sides and rosewood bridgeClosed gold-tone tuning mechanismBlack pick guard white body binding and mother-of-pearl fingerboard dotsIncludes nylon case accessory kit and Yamaha Guitar QuickStart Instructional DVD