Pierre Bensusan is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

-Algeria

Algeria

Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...

n guitarist

Guitarist

A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

. As a sephardic Jew, his family came from Spain, Spanish Morocco and French Algeria. The genre of his acoustic guitar music is often characterized as Celtic

Celtic music

Celtic music is a term utilised by artists, record companies, music stores and music magazines to describe a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk musical traditions of the Celtic people of Western Europe...

, Folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

, World music

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

, New Age

New Age

The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...

, or Chamber jazz

Chamber jazz

Chamber jazz is a genre of jazz based around small, acoustic-based ensembles where group interplay is important. It is influenced aesthetically by musical neoclassicism and is often influenced by classical forms of non-Western music. That stated in many cases the influence is traditional Celtic...

. He has also published three books of music and tablature. A wide variety of musical styles and influences can be heard in his music.

Born in 1957 in Oran

Oran

Oran is a major city on the northwestern Mediterranean coast of Algeria, and the second largest city of the country.It is the capital of the Oran Province . The city has a population of 759,645 , while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately 1,500,000, making it the second largest...

, French Algeria, he moved to Paris with his family when he was four years old. He took up the piano at the age of seven and, at the age of eleven, began to teach himself guitar. He signed the contract for his first album, Près de Paris, when he was just seventeen; it was released one year later, winning him the Grand Prix du Disque

Grand Prix du Disque

The Grand Prix du Disque is the premier French award for musical recordings. The award was inaugurated by l'Académie Charles Cros in 1948 and offers prizes in various categories. The categories vary from year to year, and multiple awards are often made in any one category in the same year...

 at the Montreux Festival

Montreux Festival

Montreux Festival is a Blues album by Albert King, Chico Hamilton andLittle Milton, recorded live on July 1, 1973 at the Montreux Jazz Festival.-Track listing:#"In View" – 12:20#"Let Me Down Easy" – 6:35...

. His many influences include Davey Graham

Davey Graham

David Michael Gordon "Davey" Graham, originally spelled Davy Graham, , was a British guitarist and one of the most influential figures in the 1960s British folk revival...

, Larry Carlton

Larry Carlton

Larry Carlton is an American jazz, smooth jazz, jazz fusion, pop, and rock guitarist and singer. He has divided his recording time between solo recordings and session appearances with various well-known bands...

, Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

, Martin Carthy

Martin Carthy

Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days...

, Nic Jones

Nic Jones

Nicolas Paul "Nic" Jones is an English folk singer, fingerstyle guitarist and fiddle player whose professional career spanned the years 1964-1982. He recorded five solo albums, and was a frequent guest performer.-Biography:...

, Ry Cooder

Ry Cooder

Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...

, Big Bill Broonzy

Big Bill Broonzy

Big Bill Broonzy was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences...

, Reverend Gary Davis

Reverend Gary Davis

Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis, was an American blues and gospel singer and guitarist, who was also proficient on the banjo and harmonica...

, Mississippi John Hurt

Mississippi John Hurt

John Smith Hurt, better known as Mississippi John Hurt was an American country blues singer and guitarist.Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine...

, Doc Watson

Doc Watson

Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson is an American guitar player, songwriter and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues and gospel music. He has won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson's flatpicking skills and knowledge of traditional American music are highly regarded...

, Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

, John McLaughlin

John McLaughlin (musician)

John McLaughlin , also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer...

, Bert Jansch

Bert Jansch

Herbert "Bert" Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s, as an acoustic guitarist, as well as a singer-songwriter...

, John Renbourn

John Renbourn

John Renbourn is an English guitarist and songwriter. He is possibly best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the folk group Pentangle, although he maintained a solo career before, during and after that band's existence .While most commonly labelled a...

, Ralph Towner

Ralph Towner

Ralph Towner is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and bandleader. He plays the twelve-string guitar, classical guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion and trumpet.-Biography:...

, Wes Montgomery

Wes Montgomery

John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...

, Pat Metheny

Pat Metheny

Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...

 and Paco de Lucía

Paco de Lucía

Paco de Lucía, born Francisco Sánchez Gómez , is a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist and composer. He is considered by many to be one of the finest guitarists in the world and the greatest guitarist of the flamenco genre...

.

Pierre Bensusan's solo acoustic guitar work has featured use of the DADGAD

DADGAD

DADGAD, D modal tuning or Celtic tuning is an alternative guitar tuning most associated with Celtic music, though it has also found use in rock and other genres. Instead of the standard EADGBE tuning, the six guitar strings are tuned, from low to high, DADGAD...

 tuning system and electronics such as delays, distortions and volume pedals, which have been largely abandoned on recent tours.

He includes scat-singing is in his compositions, both pre-composed and improvised. He has collaborated extensively with saxophonist Didier Malherbe

Didier Malherbe

Didier Antonin Malherbe is a saxophonist and flautist. He was one of the founders of the Canterbury sound band Gong....

, but today his tours are largely solo. He also performed the song "ELM" for the Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop

is a critically acclaimed and award-winning 1998 Japanese anime series directed by Shinichirō Watanabe, written by Keiko Nobumoto, and produced by Sunrise. Its 26 episodes comprise a complete storyline: set in 2071, the series follows the adventures, misadventures and tragedies of five bounty...

soundtrack Cowboy Bebop No Disc for Yoko Kanno

Yoko Kanno

is a composer, arranger and musician best known for her work on the soundtracks for many games, anime films, TV series, live-action movies, and advertisements...

.

In 2001 Bensusan released Intuite, his first new studio recording in eight years and his first totally acoustic one. It won him critical acclaim and was followed up with Altiplanos in 2005. He continues to write and tour, playing occasional gigs with Malherbe, as well as holding guitar workshops and writing guitar books.

Composer Michael Hedges

Michael Hedges

Michael Alden Hedges was an American composer, Acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter.-Background:...

 wrote a piece for Bensusan. After Hedges' death, Bensusan wrote and recorded the song "So Long Michael" in tribute to Hedges' own playing.

Discography

• Près de Paris (1975)
• Pierre Bensusan 2 (1977)
• Musiques (1979)
• Solilaï (1981)
• Spices (1988)
• Wu Wei (1993)
• Live au New Morning
  New Morning (club)
  New Morning is a Parisian music nightclub that opened in 1981, specialising in jazz and blues.Its concerts are often featured on Mezzo TV.-History:The first concert was given on 16 April 1981 by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers....
  
  /Live in Paris (with Didier Malherbe) (1997)
• Intuite (2001)
• An Evening With International Guitar Night (2004)
• Altiplanos
  Altiplanos
  - Track listing :All songs by Pierre Bensusan, except Demain, dès l'Aube, by Victor Hugo and Pierre Bensusan, La Nuit des Météores Dotea Comu-Bensusan and Pierre Bensusan, Tacita Didier Malherbe and Pierre Bensusan.#"Sentimentales Pyromaniaques" - 2:41...
  
  (2005)
• Vividly (2010)

Books

• Bensusan, P: The Guitar Book, HAL Leonard Publishing Corporation, 1985 ISBN 0-88188-620-3
• Bensusan, P: DADGAD Music: Compositions from Spices and Wu Wei, John August Music / Mel Bay Publications, 1996 ISBN 0-7866-1452-8
• Bensusan, P: The Intuite Guitar Book, DADGAD Music (France), 2003

External links

• The Official Pierre Bensusan Web Site