Eric Lugosch is one of the most creative heads of the American acoustic guitar scene. Like his colleague Duck Baker – who is also one of his greatest fans – he very skillfully combines technical know-how with musical expressiveness. Lugosch is a fellow who tinkers, who consistently seeks musical depth in his arrangements and whose artistic concept is marked by both respect of tradition as well as uncompromising originality. His spectrum of color embraces the entire range of American music, be that ragtime, blues, R&B or jazz. The hallmark of this American fingerstylist consists of an elegant, vigorous tone and a twinkling humor while playing, that inevitably peers charmingly through his music. Lugosch, who hails from Philadelphia, chalked up his first musical experience as a singer in the "Philadelphia Boys Choir," – an experience that continues to echo in him to this day: "I began listening to music with an ear for the orchestral. Motifs and lines are still central elements in my way of composing." At the age of twelve he started secretly practicing on his brother's guitar and delved into the pickings of Rev. Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt "For me, it was solo guitar right from the start", Lugosch recalls. "I experimented a great deal, worked out lines, and was always on the lookout for the orchestral sound of the instrument." He seems to have found it, even winning the 1984 "National Fingerpicking Championship." Eric Lugosch lives in Evanston, Illinois, where he writes, teaches and continues developing his own personal vision of fingerstyle guitar beyond all clichés.
