Pop Music : Taste,Feeling Key to Guitar ‘Masters’

The six “Masters of the Steel String Guitar” who played at the Wadsworth Theater on Saturday showed that it’s possible to be a great ax-wielder without hair extensions, leather pants, Marshall amps or even flying fingers on the fretboard. For these six, taste, style and, most importantly, feeling were the keys.

Guitar enthusiasts who did come to this well-balanced program of diverse musical and cultural traditions looking for flying fingers got plenty from the final performer, Albert Lee. The English country-rock veteran blistered his frets with flurries of chicken-pickin’, but never cheated on musical or emotional value. The same was true of some speedy outbursts by Virginia mountain man Wayne Henderson and Jerry Douglas, who has taken the slide Dobro well beyond its usual bluegrass-country applications.

Delta-rural blues stylist John Cephas, jazzman Cal Collins and Hawaiian slack-key player Ledward Kaapana offered more laid-back picking, but no less soulful mastery. The closing jam of all the players proved less than the sum of its parts, but you can bet a lot of people went home Saturday, stared blankly at their own guitars and wondered if they dare play again.