Robbie Basho

Robbie Basho (August 31, 1940 – February 28, 1986) was an American composer, guitarist and pianist, and a proponent of the acoustic steel string guitar in America.

Biography

Basho was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and was orphaned as an infant. Adopted by the Robinson family, Daniel Robinson, Jr. attended Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and went on to study at University of Maryland College Park. Although he played the euphonium in the high school band and sang in middle school and high school ensembles, his interest in acoustic guitar grew during his college years, as a direct result of his friendships with fellow students John Fahey, Ed Denson, and Max Ochs. In 1959, Basho purchased his first guitar and immersed himself in Asian art and culture. It was around this time that he changed his name to Basho, in honor of the Japanese Poet, Matsuo Basho.^[1]

Basho's vision was to see the steel string as a concert instrument and to create a raga system for America. During a radio interview in 1974, promoting his album Zarthus, Basho discussed his music in detail. He described how he had gone through a number of "periods" related to philosophy and music, including Japanese, Hindu, Iranian and Native American. Zarthus represented the culmination of his "Persian period". Basho asserted his wish, along with John Fahey and Leo Kottke, to raise the steel-string guitar to the level of a concert instrument. He acknowledged that the nylon-string guitar was suitable for "love songs", but its steel counterpart could communicate "fire".

Basho credited his interest in Indian music to hearing Ravi Shankar, whom he first encountered in 1962. Basho died unexpectedly at the age of 45 due to a freak accident during a visit to his chiropractor, where an "intentional whiplash" experiment caused blood vessels in his neck to rupture, leading to a fatal stroke.^[2][3]

Guitar style

Robbie Basho's dexterous, finger-picked guitar technique was influenced heavily by sarod playing, and the studies he undertook with the Indian virtuoso Ali Akbar Khan. Basho employed unusual open tunings, including a number of variants on "open-C" (CGCGCE) and played a 12-string guitar, in order to recreate the drone that is a notable feature of his beloved Indian classical music. Basho's guitar melodies were often created using Eastern modes and scales, but his work contains a broad range of noticeable influences, from European classical music to blues (in his earlier period) and ballad styles of America.

Reawakened Interest

Robbie Basho's contribution to and influence on the development of the acoustic steel string guitar was eclipsed early on by the prominence of John Fahey, fellow founder of Takoma Records and the appearance of Windham Hill records and its stable of musicians in the late 1970s. However, there has been a reawakening of interest in him and his innovative style since 2000, spurred on by reissues by Takoma, Tompkins Square, and Grass-Tops Recording as well as the publication by Bo'Weavil and Grass-Tops Recording of never-before-published concerts . The latter, Grass-Tops, fell heir to a body of tapes that had been preserved for 30 years by guitarist Glenn Jones, and plans are afoot for further new issues.

In addition, British filmmaker Liam Barker premiered the first ever documentary about Basho, "Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho" in London in October 2015 at the Raindance Festival.

Discography

References

^{[1] [4]}

External links

• Robbie Basho Archives, biography, discography, tunings, notes, articles, spotlights
• Robbie Basho Archives (german version) + [Steffen Basho-Junghans]
• RobbieBasho.net (entry into the main Robbie Basho resources -listed below + robbiebasho film)
• Robbie Basho Memorial Library
• http://RobbieBasho.com (A leading resource for information/content pertaining to Robbie Basho)
• Yahoo! discussion group
• Robbie Basho at AllMusic
• Robbie Basho tribute biography & music sample