Drag City

What began as a quest for a mini traveling guitar has turned into Sir Richard Bishop’s best solo album in years.

While traveling through Geneva, Switzerland, the former Sun City Girls guitar great became entranced with a little anonymously crafted parlor acoustic from the 1890s he discovered at a local side street guitar shop. When the shop keep dropped the price on him, Bishop left. But he would come back twice more before finally springing for this instrument which had such an enchanting hold over him.

He then took this guitar to Morocco, where he spent a week in Tangier recording this haunting new solo guitar album, an amalgamation of North Africa blues, Middle Eastern folk beauty and a touch of Takoma Records grit to bring you this most captivating and relaxing collection of instrumentals Bishop has ever brought forth.

While its always great to hear SRB rip it up Sufi surf style as he has in the past, listening to this accomplished, well traveled musician sit down and tell stories on an antique axe such as that one he paid an arm and a leg for in Geneva is a real treat on a Sunday morning. Perhaps this little parlor guitar will mark the beginning of an exciting new phase in the career of this genuine national treasure.