Tony McManus
Tony McManus (born 1965 in Paisley) has been hailed by John Renbourn as ‘the best Celtic guitarist in the world’. The session scene in Scotland and a BBC Radio studio set, provided the springboard for gigs around the UK and then the world. In 2002 he was nominated as Musician of the Year by both the BBC Folk Awards and Scottish Traditional Music Awards. Tony moved to the beautiful village of Elora, in Ontario, Canada and makes world-wide appearances at guitar festivals, where just a few years ago jigs and reels would be unheard of. In addition to his solo output, Tony has worked with many singers and instrumentalists providing his distinctive sound on many successful projects.
Mornings At Bonny Doon/ Will You Come Home With Me
An amalgam of 2 Gaelic pieces by Tony McManus for Bert Jansch
On a visit to Liverpool, Tony found time before his Philharmonic Hall gig, to salute Bert Jansch. To find a unique voice on so ubiquitous an instrument as the acoustic guitar is quite an achievement: to do so within a centuries’ old idiom as Celtic folk tunes where the instrument has no real history is truly remarkable. In Tony’s hands the complex ornamentation normally associated with fiddles and pipes is accurately transferred to guitar in a way that preserves the integrity and emotional impact of the music.
Tommy Emmanuel says of Tony “This music is beyond beautiful, its.PERFECT!” and Dick Gaughan says “I have no superlatives to do this justice.” His solo work aside, McManus is also a wonderful accompanist. He has joined forces with other guitarists such as Martin Simpson and John Jorgenson, and with fiddlers like Alasdair Fraser and Bruce Molsky, and French bassist, Alain Genty. McManus is also a sought-after tutor and runs guitar workshops.
Tony McManus made his debut recording in 1996 for the Edinburgh-based Greentrax Records. His follow-up album was made in Quebec but it is the third release, Ceol More, which provided the career breakthrough. That album proved that there was more to McManus than Celtic music with the inclusion of jazz-bassist Charles Mingus’s ‘Goodbye Porkpie Hat’, previously covered by Bert Jansch and John Renbourn in Pentangle. Critics hailed the focussed, spell-binding nature of the music, from the plaintive Jewish hymn ‘Shalom Aleichem’to the ingenious arrangement of the jazzy numbers. Never one to be typecast, Tony’s new album Mysterious Boundaries is his most ambitious to date exploring classical composers – Bach, Granados and Satie.