The Master & The Musician

As you know, Phil Keaggy is my favorite artist of all time. This year also happens to mark the 30th year since his first instrumental release titled The Master & The Musician. It's hard to believe that someone who released an album (not even his first) five years before I was born could be my favorite artist. Anyway, Phil has remastered that very album and it is on sale as we speak. It's a two disc set this time around with outtakes, demos and tunes that didn't make the final cut. He didn't win any awards for this album, but I personally feel it ranks right up there with The Wind & the Wheat and better than Beyond Nature, which both won Dove Awards and are considered his best work.

It's definitely an eclectic collection that has little jazz guitar, a little Celtic influence but worth every bit of the money spent. This is my shameless plug for you to go buy the album and support the greatest guitar player we've ever known.

While Phil's album is called the Master & the Musician, he is without a doubt the master musician. Here is an acoustic version of "Pilgrims Flight" combined with "Castle Call," which are both on this album.



I found a great Phil quote, and this sums up this album and his playing. "The gift of music is not only something that you share with other people, it's something that you give back to your creator. To me, it has to express love and the gratitude that's in your heart, because that's ultimately what we're created to do. As it says in the book of Isaiah, 'The people whom I have formed for myself shall declare my praise.' That's the foremost reason I am a Christian musician."

Go to philkeaggy.com for a great story on the making of the album, for song clips, and for information on buying the album.