Don Ross never set out to be the guy sitting under the lights up on stage, guitar in hand. Next Friday night, he’ll be doing just that at the Registry Theatre, just as he’s done many times before at many venues over the years.
Up there, however, is where he’s wowed audiences and critics alike with his multi-layered compositions and intricate fingerstyle method of playing the guitar.
Just past 50, Ross has been a legendary figure in guitar circles for decades, the result of playing since the age of 8. He grew up with music all round his Montreal home. His Scots father, an operatically trained singer, played classical music on the stereo and occasionally played the bagpipes. Ross began to teach himself the piano, but when he came upon a guitar that his older sister brought home from boarding school he was smitten. As he learned, he became fascinated by the possibility of playing several musical lines at once, inventing new tunings as he went, expanding the range of possibilities of the guitar.
He eventually studied music at Toronto’s York University. He didn’t focus on guitar but rather on composition, electronic music, and sound recording. Upon graduating, he had visions of being a composer of orchestral and electronic music or film scores – he certainly had no delusions of playing solo guitar for a living. What changed his mind was seeing the success of musicians like Michael Hedges, Steve Reich and Keith Jarrett, player/composers who followed their musical intuitions wherever they led and who fell more into the category of “artist” rather than “guitarist” or “pianist.”
“I wanted to write music at a young age – not necessarily for the guitar, but the guitar is convenient and it’s transportable. I play the piano, but that’s not so portable,” he laughed down the line from Montreal, where he recently returned to live after a 30-year absence.
The guitar has been good to him since he decided that performing his own music would be the best forum for his compositions. In 1988, he won the U.S. National Fingerstyle Guitar Competition. This earned him a record deal with Toronto-based independent label Duke Street Records. He recorded his debut for the label, Bearing Straight, which was released in 1989. Two more recordings for the label followed, 1990’s Don Ross and 1993’s Three Hands.
Ross then signed with Columbia/Sony and recorded three more CDs for that label: This Dragon Won’t Sleep in 1995, Wintertide in 1996 and Loaded. Leather. Moonroof. in 1997. In the meantime, Don won the Fingerstyle competition in the USA for a second time in 1996. To this day, he is still the only player to have won the competition twice.
The music industry has changed dramatically in the intervening 15 years, but Ross continues to go full tilt.
“I don’t have a backup plan. I’ve always wanted to be a musician,” he said. “All I can really do is keep making music and keep doing shows.”
Influenced early on by the likes of Led Zeppelin and Cream and, later, the writing of Bruce Cockburn, Ross has in turn gone on to inspire a new generation of young musicians who’ve picked up the fingerstyle technique. He’s collaborated with a host of influential players, including Andy McKee, in the Harbord Trio with Kelly McGowan and Oliver Schroer, and in Men of Steel with other heavy hitters of the guitar: Dan Crary, Beppe Gambetta and Tony McManus. He also writes for TV, radio and film. Although he is primarily known as a solo performer, he also performs with orchestras, including a remarkable 2010 performance with Germany’s Neubrandenburg Philharmonic Orchestra.
He latest disc, Upright & Locked Position, is another of those eclectic recordings that come from his varied career, he notes – “it’s pretty funky.” And it’s what we can expect from his show in Kitchener Oct. 12.
“It’ll be one of those crazy Don Ross shows,” he chuckled.
Don Ross and his guitars take to the stage Oct. 12 at 8 p.m. at the Registry Theatre, 122 Frederick St., Kitchener. Tickets are $25, available at the Centre in the Square box office by calling 578-1570 or toll free 1-800-265-8977 or online at www.centre-square.com.
