Peter Walker: Spanish Guitar

I bought this CD, released by Birdman, from Peter Walker at a show of his I attended last week. I also bought an unadorned CDR of his breakthrough/breakaway album Rainy Day Raga. I thought paying a fiver was only fair considering that he probably only made a modest amount from the original 1967 pressing, copies of which now go for £400 on eBay.

Spanish Guitar was recorded at a live show in California in 2006. I bought it because I asked Walker which of his records he thought was best. He said “This one. They caught me on a good night”. This turns out to be a very honest assessment, the performance is good. During the set I saw, he frequently name-dropped former tutors Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar as well as contemporaries like Sandy Bull and George Harrison. This was music to the ears of the half of the audience who were close to him in age.

What struck a flame in my imagination was the way he discussed his sojourns to Spain to study Flamenco. This is a style which many trace, via the Gypsies, back to the Indian ragas which inspired Walker’s early work. It demonstrated the musician he is at heart: intrigued by the ties which bind the music of the world. It struck a chord with the guitar player in me, who is realising that to go up a level I’m going to have to actually sit down and learn things, to practice. Before he began to play he told the audience that the set would represent how far he had got in his studies of the guitar so far, hinting at the learning he intends to continue.

I half enjoyed the show (Nancy Elizabeth was a briefly excellent support) but was surprised at how ragged and scruffy his playing was. He frequently overshot and hit bum notes. The playing style is very rapid and percussive so it doesn’t always notice, or even matter, but on the night it was very noticeable. He can’t have missed it himself. If I hadn’t bought the album before he played I don’t reckon I would have a copy with me now. I can’t be sure if the crowd were applauding because they had been told they were listening to a legend (and had paid eight quid…) or because they truly enjoyed it. This led more than a few people to say that they thought he was “a pretender” and a “charlatan”, some saying they thought he might have tripped one too many times. A local guitarist told me that he thought Walker could “make a sound” but to call what he played Flamenco or Raga made him a downright liar. He says that in Spain they would bottle him for it.

I’m not one to say as I have no technical understanding. He’s certainly no Paco De Lucia, but he still spoke to my heart here and there. On this collection Walker runs from one end of a set to the other with a much higher degree of grace and flair, but not entirely without fumbles. They really did catch him on a good night compared with the one I saw. It’s all the better for being live; I’m sure he could churn out a perfect studio record given ample time but it would lack the atmosphere on Spanish Guitar which is perhaps its greatest selling point.

However, listeners should be prepared for a colossal blur. The tracks bleed into one another as Walker seems uninterested in playing memorable melodies, wrapped up as he is in tight flashes of technique and rhythm. Reading descriptions of the Flamenco techniques of Rasguedo, Picado and Alzapua it seems that Walker is making use of some of them, so calling this collection Spanish Guitar seems like a fair shout. The only noticeable shift in the mood of the set is down to the change in recording quality that comes about halfway through. I can’t say whether the time signatures are odd, or whether he is just leaping about willy-nilly. No tempo remains long enough to allow you to align yourself with it, so when a change of pace or density occurs it lacks dramatic effect. Perhaps this is the aim, though I am not sure what it achieves. It would be interesting to see a Flamenco dancer try and pull some moves to this.

Having seen him play augments this listen; it gives a glimpse into the altitude he is aiming for which has allowed me to understand what it sounds like when he hits his own peculiar nail on the head. There is something in the rough and untamed rippling which does give a view of a rare and simple beauty, like a fresh gusting breeze carrying a rich scent of the ancient world, as well as some dust into your eye.