Guitarist Keaggy at peace with being #3

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

By Richard Anderson

Not even Phil Keaggy knows who started the rumor.

The story is that sometime back in the late 1960s, Jimi Hendrix (or it might have been Eric Clapton or maybe Eddie Van Halen), when asked by Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show” (or it might have been Dick Cavett on “The Dick Cavett Show”) what it felt like to be the world’s greatest guitarist, answered, “I don’t know. Go ask Phil Keaggy.”
“There’s more proof that it wasn’t said,” Keaggy said from his home in Nashville, Tenn., “and no proof that it was.

“It doesn’t upset me or anything,” he added. “I’ve always been curious to know [who started it] myself.”

What is known, however, is that Keaggy – who started his career in the ’60s playing progressive rock with the trio Glass Harp before finding his niche high on the Contemporary Christian Music charts – has been voted best acoustic guitarist by Guitar Player Magazine, has been awarded seven Dove Awards by the Gospel Music Association, and is the proud creator of “Beyond Nature,” ranked Number 3 on the Top 100 Acoustic Guitar Albums in Music History by, umm, someone – we honestly couldn’t figure out by whom.

This weekend, Keaggy brings his solo acoustic act to Jackson Hole, performing at 7 p.m. on Saturday at the Chapel at River Crossing, 3205 Big Trail Dr. in Rafter J. General admission tickets cost $15, but they’re said to be going fast.

Keaggy grew up in rural Ohio. He started recording in 1967 with his first band, New Hudson Exit, and later cut hits with Glass Harp for Decca Records.

“We were regulars in Kent, Ohio,” Keaggy said, “at a place called JB’s.” Doesn’t sound like a rock ’n’ roll hot spot, but the trio used to jam with Joe Walsh and James Gang a lot in those days, attracted the attention of Crosby, Stills and Nash, and in their heyday opened for Traffic, Iron Butterfly, Bos Skaggs, Chicago, Grand Funk Railroad, Yes and, 36 years ago this month, for the Kinks in Carnegie Hall.

“We were really good,” he said, not sounding immodest at all. “We turned a lot of heads … I was an ambitious guitar player.”

Keaggy’s early heroes were the Beatles, Cream, Hendrix (Glass Harp recorded at Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland Studio) and Yes, but his later influences are too numerous to name:  Elvis, Scotty Moore, James Burton, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Michael Bloomfield, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck. Pat Metheny, Michael Hedges (“I just love the sounds he made out of his guitar”), Anthony Phillips, John Renbourn, Martin Simpson …

Over the past 25-plus years, Keaggy has pioneered a solo style using delay and sampling effects that allow him lay down a riff, loop it, and improvise on top of it. He started in the early ???80s with a device that allowed him to loops riff just four and a half seconds long. In 1994, however, Chet Atkins invited him to his house to show him a thingy called a Jam Man.

“Phil,” Keaggy said, quoting Atkins, “it looks like this thing was made just for you.”
Maybe, once upon a time, Keaggy could have been the envy of the likes of Hendrix, if he’d taken a different path in his life and career. But he’s more than happy with his lot in life.

“I started off as a young musician hoping I’d be famous, but I chose a particular path, spiritually, and I pretty much got out of the mainstream scene and even what turned into CCM scene.

“I’ve never been a big huge seller of CDs or albums,” he continues, “but it’s given me a life and, thank God, it allows me to support my family” – his wife of 34 years, Bernadette, and three children, Alecia, Olivia and Ian – “and I thank God for my lot in life and I thank God for the opportunities I’ve had.”

Visit www.RiverCrossingonline.com for ticket information.
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