Celtic, Blues and Beyond

A Grammy Award winning recording artist and performer, Al Petteway has played nearly every type of popular, folk and classical music. Though his primary instrument has always been the guitar, he has also studied lute, string bass, percussion and music composition. His compositions for acoustic fingerstyle guitar are strongly influenced by his love of Celtic music and his own roots in folk, rock and blues - exactly the territory he opens up in his MusicGurus course, Celtic, Blues and Beyond.

In Celtic, Blues and Beyond, Al shares the open tunings, fingerstyle techniques and melodic approach behind his sound, showing you how to fuse Celtic phrasing with folk, rock and blues feel so you can find your own voice on the acoustic guitar.

Al was awarded forty-five "Wammies" by the Washington Area Music Association, including the top honors of "Artist of the Year" and "Musician of the Year". He was the recipient of two Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards for Music Composition and has performed at the Vice President's House and The White House. His playing is featured on more than sixty recordings by some of the world's best known Folk and Celtic musicians. In 2005, he was voted one of the Top Fifty Acoustic Guitarists of all Time by the readers of Acoustic Guitar Magazine, and in 2008 he won Silver and Bronze medals in the magazine's Player's Choice Awards. His CD "Caledon Wood" was voted one of the "Essential Albums of the Past Twenty Years" in Acoustic Guitar Magazine's 20th anniversary issue, and his 2012 release "It's Only the Blues" was included on two of the Acoustic Guitar Magazine's Editor's "Top Ten Essential Albums of 2012" lists. In 2014 and 2015, he released two more solo albums, "Mountain Guitar" and "Dream Guitars, Vol. II."

"An innovative instrumentalist known for his open tunings, Petteway offers a rich, dulcet sound that features a fusion of old and new."
--The Boston Globe