Richard Smith
22nd November 2007

At last a success story in the annals of the Fingers and Thumbs Acoustic Guitar Society. Richard Smith came to Radcliffe-on-Trent for his fifth or sixth visit in late November 2007 and did a workshop and concert. The major difference was the venue, we chose Grange Hall rather than the Black Lion pub. Grange Hall is our newish community centre providing more room, better seats, better lighting, a better sound system, a good bar and better surroundings in general. This made the concert of more interest to the people of Radcliffe-on-Trent who support local events and I know there were many "first timers" to an acoustic guitar concert. I hope they enjoyed it and will turn up again when Richard comes over with his wife, cellist Julie Adams in January 2009

Richard was brilliant and played a wide variety of tunes in his inimitable style. He is a fearless player tackling, for instance, classical piano music that was never meant for the guitar demonstrating his ability to arrange tunes to suit his immense talent. He of course played his wonderful arrangements of good old standards by Gershwin, Berlin, Porter and he also played several guitar pickers standards by Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed and Merle Travis. We had 128 people at this concert on 23/11/07 and Richard was well pleased and sold many cds and dvds.

Richard gave a four hour guitar workshop the night before the concert and this was attended by 17 people. There were young guitar students, bedroom players, guitar teachers and some who gigged with bands. A good mix of talent who, I am sure, benefited from the workshop.