Meet Paisley’s guitar hero
You’ve guessed it, no more news on live music happening so far so I thought I’d highlight one of the best guitarists in the world that comes from Paisley.
By now I’m sure you are saying to yourself. Really? Who? What band did he play for?
First of all, he is not known for playing in a band as such although he has on occasion. He is more of an acoustic solo player and collaborates regularly with the best guitarists on the planet.
Before I give you his name, John Renbourn - an English guitarist and songwriter who was best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the folk group Pentangle - called him
‘the best Celtic guitarist in the world’.
He is of course Tony McManus, who has been listed as one of the 50 transcendental guitarists of all time by Guitar Player Magazine.
Tony was born in 1965 in Paisley, his surname the legacy of an Irish grandfather.
He was introduced to traditional music via the family record collection. Having first tried his hand at the fiddle, whistle and mandolin, he took up the guitar aged ten, although subsequent academic inclinations got him halfway through a PhD in maths before the music won out.
After rapidly making his name as an unusually fluent and sensitive accompanist, he took the solo plunge with a triumphant main-stage debut on the final night of Glasgow’s inaugural Celtic Connections festival in 1994, supporting Capercaillie in front of a 2,500-strong crowd.
He has totally transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. If you are familiar with either the acoustic guitar or Celtic Connections scene you will know he is ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats.
His music is taken from the entire Celtic world – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, Cape
Breton, Quebec – along with still further-ranging flavours, such as jazz and east European music.
He has the extraordinary talent to transpose the delicate and somewhat complicated bagpipe or fiddle tunes onto his guitar. He is a pioneering figure in taking Celtic music and bridging it with almost every other genre.
Over the years, Tony has recorded a catalogue of albums, both solo and in collaboration with friends. He released his first album, Tony McManus, in 1996 on Greentrax Recordings. He recorded his second album, Pourquoi Quebec? in Quebec, Canada and released it on the same label in 1998.
His third album, Ceol More, was released in 2002 and achieved widespread critical acclaim.
In 1988, he was substituted for guitarist Soig Siberil in the supergroup Celtic Fiddle Festival, which consisted of fiddlers Johnny Cunningham, Kevin Burke, and Christian Lemaitre.
He has worked as accompanist for
Catriona MacDonald and for singer, guitarist, and fiddler Brian McNeill. Tony’s album Return to Kintail was a duet with Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser.
In addition to traditional Celtic music, McManus plays classical music and other genres. He performed a piece by Erik Satie for the soundtrack of a movie by Neil Jordan.
He has performed a chaconne by J.S. Bach at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City with jazz fusion guitarist John McLaughlin.
Here is what they say about him. Christina Roden, from AllMusic, said: “As usual, his command of acoustic guitar technique is flawless, with a chesty, rounded, gorgeous tone and a knack for well-marked rhythms and singing phrases.”
Gordon Potter, of Living
Tradition, said: “Here is a musician demonstrating talent by making it seem understated. This is good, this is very good indeed, and there’s not much else that can be said.”
Check out his tunes on YouTube, ‘What a Wonderful World’ or ‘Guitar Artistry’, and keep any eye out for dates when Tony is next performing near you.
Tony emigrated to Canada in 2003 and isn’t around as much as he used to be.
He is known as the hardest working man in folk so it may be sooner that you think!