Artists

Ryan Swing was born on Chicago’s South Side and started playing guitar at the age of fourteen. Born with a deep passion for a broad variety of musical styles, Swing studied with Grammy award winner and jazz giant Frank J. Rumoro at the Chicago Acadamy of Jazz Guitar. Since that time he has made a name for himself as a teacher, performer, session guitarist, and true stylistic chameleon. With hundreds of live performances under his belt, he has been actively touring the East Coast with several nationally recognized artists since 2014. Ryan is currently lead guitarist for “The Voice” country star Audra McLaughlin.

As co-founding member, principal songwriter, electrifying lead guitarist and co-producer of Aerosmith‚ America’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band‚ Joe Perry has achieved permanent iconic stature in the pantheon of rock. He has helped to drive his band, over the course of four decades, to sales of more than 150 million albums, critical acclaim, four Grammy Awards induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Aaron Mclain is a multi talented musician, singer, songwriter, producer and composer who studied at Dick Groove School of Music in Los Angeles. He is an L.A. native who has worked with some of the hottest names in the business – Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, Tears for Fears singer Oleta Adams, Patti LaBelle, Terrance Trent Darby, Boys Don\’t Cry, Beto Cuevas, music director for Rebbie Jackson and currently lead guitarist for the hit pop group Air Supply, among others. Mclain has performed with artist on many TV shows including, Marc Anthony Live at Madison Garden HBO Special, The Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live, Today Show 07\’, Latin Billboard Awards 2006, Victoria Secret Fashion Awards 2003, Winter Olympics 2002, Marc Anthony CBS Special 2002, Grammy Awards 2002, Miss Universe 2002, Billboard Awards 2002, Blockbuster Awards 2000, Gloria Estefan Special, Mad TV, Rosie O\’Donell, The View, Craig Kilborn, and many more.

Just recently Aaron received a Latin Grammy for his guitar work on the 2013 Beto Cuevas Album \”Transformacion\”, which won in the \”Best Pop/Rock Album\” category. As a composer, Aaron scored the music for the film \”Convincing Clooney\”, has written spots for Fox Sports, an Oakley Sunglasses Ad, the opening theme for Beta TV, and just recently recorded an Urban Guitar & Bass Loop Set for Native Instruments, as well as many Loops Sets for P5 Audio.

Following another stint in an Irish show band based in Dublin, Legg moved back to London and continued to gig in bands that played clubs and pubs and toured around and outside Britain. When one bandleader asked him to play acoustic guitar chords up against a microphone, he became fascinated with the notion of blending the tonality of an acoustic with the amplified power of the electric guitar.

Thus began an electro-acoustic quest that continues today to find the holy guitar grail that melds tone, technique and technology to allow him to create, perform and record the music his imagination envisions, eventually incorporating synthesizers and computerized MIDI programming to augment and enrich his one-man musicality. “I wanted something that had the harmonic content roughly like an acoustic, and that had the flexibility in terms of stringing and volume levels, whatever you wanted to do, of an electric,” he explains.

Starting to gig as a solo artist in the mid 1970s, Legg won a Guitar magazine solo acoustic competition in both the composition and performance categories, and began writing articles for that magazine and other guitar publications (and later Guitar Player in America), plus authored his first of a number of books, The All Round Gigster. He released his first of five albums in Britain in 1976. Soon after he began working for Rose Morris & Company’s musical instrument and equipment store on London’s legendary Denmark Street music business strip doing guitar repairs, quality control and manufacturer contact. That led to collaborations and consultations with numerous guitar makers and amplifier and pickup manufacturers and technicians over the years as well as guitar clinics and product demonstrations at musical instrument and equipment shows in Britain, Europe and later America and Japan. His compositions began being used by English radio and TV programs, and London’s Ballet Rambert also choreographed one of his songs as a dance piece.

With his 1990 American recording debut on Guitars & Other Cathedrals, Legg found even greater success across the pond as a regularly touring solo act, headlining and sharing bills with fellow guitarists Richard Thompson, David Lindley, Eric Johnson (whose 2005 album Bloom Legg plays on) and Joe Satriani (on both his own shows and as part of his G3 Tour package with Johnson and Steve Vai, whose Favored Nations record label released two Legg albums). Guitar Player named his records Guitar for Mortals and Mrs. Crowe’s Blue Waltz as Best Acoustic Album (1992 & ’93) and Wine, Women & Waltz as Best Overall Guitar Album (1994) in its annual readers’ polls. He has three instructional videos on the U.S. market (Beyond Acoustic Guitar, Fingerpicking & Open Tunings and How To Cheat At Guitar) as well as two books (Customizing Your Electric Guitar and a collection of his compositions in tablature and standard notation, Pickin’ and Squintin’). In addition to his commentaries for “All Things Considered,” the popular public radio news show regularly uses a number of his varied guitar interpretations of its theme music.

Throughout his career, he has earned the highest praise from the media. \”Legg is, above all, a guitarist of great power, invention and versatility,” observes the St. Petersburg Times. “Through fast-fingered picking, spontaneously layering parts and occasional ringing harmonics, he sounds like an orchestra.” Guitar Player heralds how he “combines a sublime melodic sense with a mighty right-hand groove, creating pretty music with rhythmically aggressive undercurrents,” while Acoustic Guitar notes that “the guitar is the most versatile instrument in the world, and nobody demonstrates this better than Adrian Legg.” But the Atlanta Journal-Constitution likely summed up his impact on listeners best when it exclaimed, \”Mr. Legg\’s compositions, with their narrative melodies and nakedly emotive tones, offer an antidote to the guitar-hero syndrome.”

Al Vosper hails from the beautiful city of Exeter. He has had an extremely wide range of musical influences from Big Bands, Cream, Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Rolling Stones & The Beatles. In 1978 he started his professional career with the band ‘First Class’ who had a no1 hit with ‘Beach Baby’.

In 1983, Al answered an advert in the Melody Maker and joined a club band led by Phil Aldridge. He left a year later to start a world tour with the French singer Julian Clerc as a backing singer, He toured Australia, America & Europe with Freddy & The Dreamers and in 1990 joined the band London Beat (‘I’ve Been Thinking About You’). This led him to many subsequent tours & shows with Paul Young.

In August 1996, Al took a call from Phil asking him to join an Eagles show he was forming called the Beagles. Al suggested he call it “The Illegal Eagles”. Phil wisely agreed and the show was born then and there. 3 months later, Al decided to leave and pursue his career as a free-lance musician. He playing credits include Lulu, Paul Young, David Essex, David Cassidy, Joe Cocker, Beverly Knight, Paul Carrick, Sarah Brightman, Bananarama, En Vogue, Alfie Boe, Nick Mason from Pink Floyd & Mike Rutherford (with whom he recorded a version of Hotel California!) and Il Divo.

Andrew Oye (born May 10, 1974) is an award-winning composer from British Columbia, Canada. He has had his music featured in shows such as Transformers 3, The Superbowl, Californication, Dexter, Lost, CSI, The Office, Sons Of Anarchy, Hotel Transylvania 2, Hawaii Five O, Pretty Little Liars, and countless others. He has also collaborated with notable musicians and actors like Barry Pepper, Ryan Hoyle of Collective Soul fame, and the late great T Lavitz of Dixie Dregs fame.

Since 2006 Oye has been writing production music for various publishers in the US and Canada. He recently opened his own production library DirectComposer.Com. To date Oye has composed over 2000 pieces of music that have been used in thousands of productions throughout Canada, USA, Australia, Asia and Europe. If you watch some of the hottest shows on TV, you have likely heard the music of Andrew Oye.

Andy G Jones has played with Van Morrison, James Ingram, Lamont Dozier, Cliff Richard, Queen (Brian May and Roger Taylor), The BBC Radio Big Band, Patti Austin, Hamish Stuart (Average White Band), Lalo Schifrin (Hollywood film composer – Bullitt, Mission Impossible), Hank Marvin, Grady Tate, Agnetha from ABBA, Dudley Moore, Sarah Brightman, Petula Clark, Smooth Jazz star Richard Smith, Chris Standring, Jerry Lewis (The Nutty Professor, King of Comedy), Katherine Jenkins and Darcey Bussell, (See the live DVD from the O2 Arena – ‘Viva LA Diva’ and the South Bank Show on the show in which Andy was heavily featured) and has toured with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Since leaving Van Morrison, Andy has been in Cliff Richard’s band and played at the Queen’s Jubilee Concert which also featured Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Paul McCartney. He has just returned from Australia where he played on a live Cliff Richard DVD at the Sydney Opera House. Andy is guitarist/MD for Patti Revell and also plays in Noel McCalla\’s acoustic trio.

Role: Session guitarist
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Country: Brazil Band: Solo Artist

Ben Haggard is Merle’s youngest son and lead guitarist in Merle’s band, The Strangers. Ben began playing with the strangers at the age of 15 and continues to tour with the band at the currently age of 21. Ben ’s largest influences include Roy Nichols, Reggie Young, James Burton, Grady Martin and of course his father, Merle. Recently, Ben made his first public debut on ”Working Man’s Poet – A Tribute To Merle Haggard” where he along with other various artists released songs in honor of is father, the legends son released two songs titled ”Mama Tried” and “Sing Me Back Home” available now on iTunes!

Country: United States Band: Loretta Lynn