Steve Morse...

A few pics I've found on the net of my all-time fave guitarist, the legendary Steve Morse.

Steve is currently filling the HUGE shoes of Richie Blackmore as the guitarist for Deep Purple (and doing one hell of a job of it!) but I still prefer his instrumental music with the Dregs/Dixie Dregs and especially, The Steve Morse Band, who I first saw as the warm-up act for Rush in Hartford CT. during their 1986 "Power Windows" tour.

Steve is a true working musician, constantly on the road and/or in the studio cutting new material. His many diverse influences range from Celtic and Bluegrass music, Bach, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Led Zeppelin and Walter/Wendy Carlos to name just a few. His style is as ecclectic as his influences and his compositions often fuse elements of many different types of music.

Kick Ass!
Steve can shred with the best of them!

Steve's main axe for about 2 decades was, oddly enough, the Ernie Ball Musicman Steve Morse model. The first time I saw him play this axe was during his short stint with Kansas in the late 1980's. At first I thought it was some type of Strat-style body but it's actually the general size and shape of a Telecaster except with the added cutaway up top. During just one song Steve's sound often shifts wildly from heavily distorted humbucker tones to twangy blue-grass single coil sounds and everything in between!

His newest ax is the new and improved Musicman Steve Morse Y2D.

An early pic of Steve with his legendary "Frankenstein" Fender Telecaster, which he did play the first time I saw him live but from then on in it was the Ernie Ball guitars and the Tele has been retired. Watch Steve kicking it out with that old Tele on a rather energetic little Dregs bluegrass tune called The Bash .
I vividly recall at a show once he said that Heavy Metal and Bluegrass are quite similar in the energy level persent but that with Bluegrass it was OK to smile!

Steve is a master of the classical guitar and his compositions on that instrument are both techincally dazzling and absolutely beautiful to listen to. Seeing him play those songs live, often in a duet with Steve Morse Band bassist Dave LaRue, was always a major highlight of his shows!

Steve has great technical facility and his compositions are often incredibly complex and a challenge even for him to play well on stage, but he always plays them with feeling.