Al Di Meola – Elegant Gypsy & More (Live)

"Last night I rediscovered my very first Les Paul which was basically buried behind a wall of other guitars that I hadn’t actually touched in more than 30 years. I bought it when I was 17 years old, I ordered it from the famous Manny’s Music on 48th street. It was used on the first three RTF albums, Land of the Midnight Sun and exclusively as well on Elegant Gypsy. I completely forgot how this guitar sounds! Now I’m going to use it on my new studio album, Beatles tribute II. Then I recalled in the day when I was using this guitar that I was adamant against using any effects and I was one of the purists that preferred going direct. Then it dawned on me that somewhere deep in my warehouse of stuff may be two or three 50w Marshalls from the 70s which made that sound an iconic sound of the time. Luckily, after tearing through a ton of stuff, I was blown away to find that one of the Marshalls in particular sounded as good as it did in the heyday. I think there is no more powerful combination. What an epiphany!" (June 2,2019) - Al Di Meola