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These 3 do more than strum 6 strings

California Guitar Trio show off licks from Queen to Beethoven
California Guitar Trio

Classifying the California Guitar Trio may be a futile effort. Unless you use a phrase like “plays what excites them.”

The group of Paul Richards, Hidey Moriya and Bert Lams are a trio of acoustic guitar players – an adventurous bunch, diving headfirst into a deep and diverse pool of music, performing daring and unique takes on the works of such composers, musicians and players like Bach, Vivaldi, Dick Dale, The Doors and Queen, in addition to their own original pieces. Their repertoire would fit on stage at Carnegie Hall, Cains Ballroom or the 9:30 Club.

Wednesday will be their Durango debut, with a performance at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College.

Fans of King Crimson may be familiar with the trio’s work. They formed more than 20 years ago after meeting at the Guitar Craft School led by King Crimson founder and guitar teacher Robert Fripp. Fripp, who formed the progressive rock band King Crimson in 1968, has taught guitar classes around the world.

“(Fripp) is one of the most innovative and greatest guitar players to walk this planet. Each of the three of us heard about (the classes he taught), and one way or another ended up studying with Robert. We just hit it off somehow, both musically and friendship-wise,” Richards said last month from Los Angeles. “We became friends and were hanging out and started playing music together. It came together very naturally.”

Then they naturally started taking whatever gigs they could. Coffee houses, art centers, small venues, large venues – nothing was too big, too small or too strange of a venue for them to take the stage and play. That led to Fripp reaching out to his now-former students to open for his band King Crimson in 1995; it was the first time King Crimson toured in years. That resulted in the band remaining out on the road from then until now; since then, they’ve performed more than 1,500 shows.

“It helped us gain a lot of exposure all over the country and all over the world,” Richards said. “They usually do the concerts without any other groups, so we were honored that we got invited to do that world tour. It helped us immensely. We gained so many fans from that, it helped propel us to where we are touring constantly now.”

Their shows remain exercises in a limitless songbook that draws from anything they think they can tailor their style, sound and set-list. Anything they didn’t write could be adapted by the trio.

“That is certainly one of the challenges that we like to play with in the guitar trio – trying all sorts of music that is not usually played on the guitar and finding a way to make it work with three acoustic guitars. I think that’s one of the things that makes us unique, is that we can cover such a wide range of genres and music,” Richards said. “To us it doesn’t matter what kind of music it is. It’s something that’s exciting to us I think that excitement is evident in our concerts and translates to the audience. Excitement is key to us, not so much interested in playing any certain style of music, but what seems right to us.”

Liggett_b@fortlewis.edu. Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager.

If you go

California Guitar Trio will play rock, classical, surf and more at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, $14/$29. Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College, 247-7657, www.durangoconcerts.com.



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