Billy McLaughlin | pt

Billy McLaughlin is a guitarist and composer

Billy McLaughlin grew up in a Minneapolis, Minnesota home with five brothers, three sisters and one phonograph record player with only one pair of highly fought over headphones. Still, music was a family obsession and Billy tried learning trumpet and piano before settling on guitar as a junior high student. His guitar interests ranged widely from Carlos Santana and Duane Allman to Leo Kottke and James Taylor.
While studying music at the University of Southern California, he became interested in the minimalist compositions of Phillip Glass and Steve Reich. Hearing recordings by guitarists Michael Hedges and Steve Tibbets, McLaughlin launched into a period of intense exploration and began composing for his first CD released on his own record label in 1986.
Many of the new pieces featured a technique using both hands on the fingerboard in which the notes are “tapped” in a series of hammer-ons and pull-offs creating a harp-like effect. The technique became McLaughlin’s stylistic signature and by the early 90’s he was touring coast-to-coast, primarily on university campuses. McLaughlin found the style very useful in both settings for either solo guitar or with his nine-piece ensemble who toured with him often.
For twenty years, he astounded audiences around the world with his complex and rhythmic music.
In 2001, Billy was diagnosed with Focal Dystonia, an incurable neuromuscular disease that rendered him unable to play his own music. By 2002, Billy McLaughlin's career was over. In 2006, Billy began a comeback. He was doing the unthinkable - relearning his songs left handed.
Billy McLaughlin is astounding audiences once again with both his story and his music. .